Mining Museum

Exhibit: The Paymaster's Shack, a small building with a big history (14116 Valles Mines School Road 63087). Jesse James blew our safe in the building but never robbed the train. His hideout cave lies a few miles due East. [Scheduled for Rehab Phase 1, Summer 2019]

Exhibit: Historic photos, ledgers, artifacts, and documents from the 1800's forward or before [see arrowheads from Flint Rock Mound]. Many local residents or their descendants have donated their family portraits, Kodaks, and work pictures of times past. Former Valles Mines residents and their families live all over the world now and we try to track them. You never know who you might meet here. Recent visitors came from New Zealand and England.

Exhibit: Mining artifacts from the days of brute force, before Black & Decker. Drilling with star drills and sledge hammers, packing the holes with explosives, hand mining on your back all day, eventually 2 hundred years later with some steam tools. "The men were bulls!"

Exhibit: Solid rock cores from our Diamond Drill prospecting operations. In 1911, the steam powered Diamond Core Drill [pictured] struck an underground river making the Artesian Well you can drink from today at the foot of the hill where the Museum stands. It still flows today.

Exhibit: 'Mineral Blossoms' (drusy quartz) and other local samples you can purchase in the Rock Shop, gathered from our Mines and Works on the property.