Description
Most everything man-made has something to do with mining. At the Sterling
Hill Mining Museum we'll show you just how it's done. From drilling and
blasting to the processing of the ore, we?ve got it all! Come take a ¼ mile underground walking adventure into the 4th oldest mine in the country and the last working underground mine in NJ. Along the way you will see a mining equipment history display, a drilling and blasting demonstration and the world famous fluorescent ?Rainbow Tunnel? where everybody gets to take home a fluorescent mineral specimen.
Right here in NJ is one of the worlds richest zinc ore deposits. This area
boasts over 350 minerals, about 70 of which fluoresce, that's about 10% of
the known minerals in the world right here in NJ. As well as the richest
fluorescent mineral deposit in the world. You can collect minerals from
all over the world, including fluorescence, yourself 7 days a week
when the museum is open.
Hours
The Museum is open from April 1 to November 30, seven days a week. The Museum is closed on Easter Sunday and Thanksgiving Day. Gift Shop hours are 10 A.M.- 3 P.M.
Tours for the regular season are held at 1 P.M.*
* Tours are available at other times by chance or appointment.
We are also open, weather permitting, for weekends in December and the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. We are also open during weekends for the month of March.
Tours are available for March and December by appointment only. The
Museum is closed for the months of January and February.
Admissions are:
$10.00 for adults
$9.00 for senior citizens
$8.00 for anyone under 12 years of
age.
Other Information
It is a cool 56° in the mine. So be sure to bring your sweater or light
jacket along before the tour actually begins. Proper footwear is required.
Sterling Hill is one of two mines that make up one of the most renowned
mining districts in the world. Who would think that the mineral deposits
at the Sterling Mine and its sister mine in nearby Franklin would be one
of the great geological mysteries known to earth science today? They
exist in the Skylands of New Jersey, just an hour from midtown New York
The Sterling Mine is named for William Alexander, Lord Stirling, who owned
the property from 1761 to 1776 and made attempts to smelt the local ores.
Dutch prospectors and the Lenni Lenape Indians probably knew about the
Sterling Hill ore body much earlier, which outcropped in plain sight above
the Wallkill River.
The Franklin-Sterling Hill mining district represents two centuries of
American mining history and technology, mining law and the earth
sciences. It was not until after the perfection of ore-dressing techniques
in the early 1800?s that mining the deposits became economically feasible.
The ore mined in the district was primarily zinc ore. This ore consisted
of the minerals known as; Zincite, a zinc oxide Willemite, a zinc silicate
Franklinite, a zinc iron manganese oxide.
These three minerals are very rich in zinc and are just a few of the 357+
minerals found in the district. This is about 10% of all those known and
constitute a world record for the number of mineral species from a
single locality. Yet zincite and franklinite are nowhere else mined
outside the district. Willemite is found in very limited quantities
scattered around the globe. Besides the richness of the ore, many of these
minerals fluoresce. Again this is a world record number of at least 90
species that are fluorescent, more than any single place on earth.
The Sterling Hill Mine closed for a variety of reasons in 1986. When this
mine closed, it meant the end of all underground mining in the state of New Jersey. The Sterling Hill Mining Museum was established in 1989 and
opened to the public on August 4, 1990. The Museum has been listed on
the Register of Historic Sites since 1991. The Museum continues today as a
non-profit foundation. We are also a Mines, Metal and Men Site.
It is a cool 56° in the mine. So be sure to bring your sweater or light
jacket along before the tour actually begins. Proper footwear is required.