Ann McElhaney’s lime green sweatsuit was patterned garishly red with Arkansas clay. Her face and hands also were liberally smeared with the iron-rich soil. Tiny trickles of blood oozed from beneath two jaggedly broken pink fingernails. The late-April midday sun bore down like a sledgehammer, but the visitor from Lake Jacksonville, Texas, sitting cross-legged atop a mini-mountain of the gritty scarlet earth, wore a grin the size of a slice of honeydew melon.
“This is just fabulous,” she gushed, brushing a cloud of pale blond hair off her sweaty forehead–and brushing more red stains on. “You can’t believe the stuff I’m finding.”
Proud as a kindergartner at show-and-tell, McElhaney, 59, displayed some of the results of her morning’s effort: glittering spears and showy clusters of quartz crystals. Through stains of mud and iron oxide, the six-sided beauties, filed by nature into razor-slim points, shone as clear as tap water, their mirror-smooth sides flashing like beacons in the sunshine.
The gravely pile McElhaney and her husband, Paul, were probing with three-prong garden tools was one of dozens of similar heaps arrayed across a flattened swath of ground the size of several football fields. Each “hill” was a dump truck-load of tailings, hauled here for visitors to poke through, at what the McElhaneys believe is the most rewarding of the open-to-the-public quartz mines in Arkansas: Ron Coleman’s, located near here in the rugged Ouachita Mountains just north of Hot Springs.
The 30-acre crystal quarry is a commercial operation with three full-time miners, producing thousands of pounds of the sparkly material annually. Most of it is retrieved by the miners and sold in the retail shop or wholesale showrooms here, or at vast gem and mineral shows in Tucson, Ariz., and abroad, according to Shane Manley, 40, one of the miners. (For an idea of the volume, Manley says the quartz bound for Tucson every year fills two trailers pulled by semis.)
But many crystals are overlooked during the mining process or are not considered of high enough commercial quality (as judged by clarity, size and condition).
These remain in the thick red earth to be carted away in the tailings that are such a magnet for rockhounds and others.
Thousands of visitors come here every year to spend $20 a day to dig up as much quartz as they can. And should someone’s hunt not be as successful as they’d hoped (a rare scenario), rather than have that person go away disappointed, the folks at the mine let them help themselves to $20 worth of acid-cleaned crystals at the shop. (Ten other area mines allow visitors to dig, including four that–like Ron Coleman’s–are commercial operations.)
So addicted is Ann McElhaney to the quest for quartz that when she and Paul were married on Valentine’s Day this year, she suggested they come here for their honeymoon. Two months later now, and they were back–pulling a trailer behind their motor home to haul home the loot from a week-long stay. And they’re planning to come back again in another couple of months for three weeks of digging.
Obviously, as she says with a laugh, it “wasn’t hard to convince Paul that hunting for treasure is a really fine way to spend your time.”
With that I absolutely agree, having first come down with quartz fever 12 years ago. It may go into remission for a year or so, but then a particularly virulent strain comes back, and the only cure is to head south for a few days. Driving there from our St. Louis-area home is best, of course, but one time we flew–and my husband, Guy, was not pleased by what it cost to ship home 200 pounds of crystals.
I would also have to agree with McElhaney’s assessment of Ron Coleman’s mine, though others we’ve prospected are agreeable in their own way, and all yield good material. Manley says the mine, known as the Old Coleman Mine for more than half a century, though its official name was originally the Blocker Lead No. 4, is considered to produce the world’s purest quartz and sets the world standard for the crystals. He adds that “99 percent of the quartz dug in the United States comes from Arkansas, and Ron Coleman’s mine leads in production.”
Arkansas’ “quartz belt,” about 30 miles wide, stretches roughly from Hot Springs west to Pencil Bluff, with crystals decreasing in size as the belt moves west (much of it now lies under Lake Ouachita, created in the 1950s). Most of the quartz, which was deposited by hot water some 250 million years ago, is milky material found in shale or sandstone, pocked with cavities of clear crystals and crystal clusters packed in red clay. Most cavities, or pockets, contain 200 to 300 pounds of the glittery stuff. But some yield up to three tons.
Ron Coleman’s grandfather, Charlie Coleman, was among the first to dig here, according to Jean Teal, 72, who grew up nearby. Teal remember when the mine, which was owned by a lumber company, was taken over by the federal government during World War II “for the war effort.” He carried water for the miners, who “knocked off spectacular quartz clusters with hammers for radio oscillators.”
Back then, a pound of quality quartz could bring $40 to $60–more than a week’s wages at another occupation. Now one of the miners, Teal recalls frequently seeing flawless crystals “the size of watermelons” dug up only to be tossed into the crusher.
Charlie Coleman was followed by his son Frank, then his grandsons Ron and Jimmy (who now owns another nearby mine and rock shop). But for years, despite the mine’s name, the family had never owned it, leasing it instead from a string of owners, including a German firm.
Then in 1987, Ron Coleman, long interested in the quartz more for its aesthetic than industrial value (it’s still used in radios and watches), rounded up the $3 million the German firm was asking, and since then has “transformed the mine into a haven for collectors and curious tourists,” said Teal.
The 10,000-square-foot building that includes the mine’s office, cavernous shop and wholesale display rooms, stands on the highest ground around and offers dramatic views in all directions. From there you look far to the west over the mine to the craggy blue Ouachitas along the horizon. The mine itself, moving slowly west as work progresses, is a huge red wound in an otherwise lushly green landscape. Sculpted into four levels, the mine is now about 125 feet deep, and if not for the 6-inch electric pump that runs constantly, would disappear under the mocha lake of spring water that flows in (and is shunted off to a nearby creek).
Small charges of dynamite–placed at least 10 feet away from pockets containing crystals–are used to break material loose from the mine walls. Then heavy machinery–crawler backhoes and dump trucks–is used to clear away the blasted-loose materials to expose the quartz-filled pockets.
Because the clay the crystals are found in is “soupy, like mayonnaise, [pry] bars aren’t needed,” Manley said. The work of actually removing the often complex, gorgeous clusters and the large, nearly as spectacular individual crystals is done by hand. All are rinsed, then placed on racks in steel vats where they soak for several days in a mix of oxalic acid to remove, as much as possible, all traces of rust-colored iron oxide stains.
With Manley leading the way, we toured the main wholesale warehouses, three enormous display rooms where tables display thousands of spectacular pieces. Outside, huge, red-coated crystals in a field of bushel baskets awaited the acid bath. Our guide noted that many of the pieces (which can weigh 50 pounds and more) will sell to collectors for hundreds of dollars, some for several thousand dollars–and a few are priced at $1 million-plus.
Wandering through this surreal glittering crystal world can make you feel a little light-headed. How thrilling it would be to own some of the dazzling pieces. But somehow buying crystals doesn’t compare with finding them yourself, digging through the gritty tailings, laboring under a white-hot sun or drenching rain and pulling from the muck a perfect (or not) transparent (or murky) spear of quartz. All are beautiful.
After I return home and look around my desk, where the computer and an array of crystals share space about equally, I can feel the fever coming back.
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
To get to Ron Coleman’s Crystal Mine, take Arkansas Highway 7 north from Hot Springs, Ark., to Jessieville, then turn west on Little Blakely Road and continue 1 1/2 miles to the mine. Digging hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. from Memorial Day through Labor Day and 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. the rest of the year (closed Dec. 24-25). The cost per day is $20 for adults, $5 for ages 7-16 (6 and under dig for free). Information: Box 8219, Hot Springs, AR 71910; 501-984-5396 or 800-291-4484.
OTHER DIGS
The four other full-time mining operations that allow visitors are:
– Brewster Mountain Mine; visitors will be escorted there from Gee and Dee Crystals, which is 10 1/2 miles north of Mt. Ida on Arkansas Highway 27; 870-867-4561.
– (Jimmy) Coleman’s Rock Shop; Arkansas 7 and Little Blakely Road (at the turn for his brother Ron’s mine) near Jessieville; 501-984-5328; www.jimcolemancrystals.com.
– Crystal Cavern, 5 miles east of Mt. Ida on U.S. Highway 270; 870-867-3664.
– Fiddlers Ridge Rock Shop and Crystal Mines, 7 miles east of Mt. Ida on U.S. Highway 270; 870-867-2127; www.fiddlersridgecrystals.com
Visitors can also dig at:
– Crystal Seen Trading Co., 4 miles east of Mt. Ida on U.S. 270; 870-867-4072; www.crystalseen.com.
– Judy’s Crystals and Things, 6 miles east of Mt. Ida on U.S. 270; 870-867-2523 or 870-867-2439; www.judyscrystals.com.
– Stanley Rock Shop, on Pine Street east of Mt. Ida; 870-867-3556; www.mtidachamber.com/stanley.
– Starfire Mines; visitors meet at the Colonial Motel, 12 miles east of Mt. Ida on U.S. 270, and are escorted to the mine; 870-867-2431; www.starfirecrystals.com.
– Sweet Surrender Crystal Mine; visitors will be escorted to the mine; call Randy for reservations/directions at 870-867-0104 or 870-867-7075; www.arcrystalmine.com.
– Wegner Crystal Mines, 3 miles south of Mt. Ida off Owley Road; 870-867-2309; www.wegnercrystalmines.com.
EVENTS:
The 18th annual World’s Championship Quartz Crystal Dig 2004 will be held Oct. 7-9 in the Mt. Ida area. Participants dig at the quartz mine of their choice (all but Ron Coleman’s Crystal Mine participate). Prizes–for best points and clusters, and highest dollar values–include trophies and $1,500 cash. Registration is $60 until Oct. 1, then $75; children 10-16 can dig with adult supervision. Only hand tools are allowed, and you must provide your own. Diggers keep what they find. For information, contact the Mt. Ida Area Chamber; Box 6, Mt. Ida, AR 71957; 870-867-2723; www.mtidachamber.com.
— P.S.
