FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[vic rzonca]

Most of you have a fluorite from Illinois.

[Michael Shaw]

Nice photos, Vic. I'll add this one to the mix.
This was taken in 2005 and it was one of the last standing headframes in the district.

[Bob Harman]

The Illinois fluorite district was and still is an interesting place to visit. It is in very southeastern Illinois, near the towns of Cave-in-Rock and Rosiclare. There were several mining areas within the district which is across the Ohio River from the Kentucky fluorite district. The last mining area to be exploited was the Harris Creek district which consisted of 3 mines; the Denton Mine, the Minerva Mine and the Annabel Lee Mine. This district closed about 1996 or so bringing a near complete end to mining in the area. But the Hastie Quarry, just North of Cave-in-Rock still operates and owns mining rights to much ore still in the ground. There is fluorite, sphalerite, Baryte and some galena which may be economic if prices of these commodities were to again rise.

In the 1980s and 1990s large numbers of mid and hi range specimens were available for those visiting the district. The miners all brought specimens out in their lunch boxes and sold them to the public and to friend operated stores in town. The town was very small so most everyone knew everyone else. Many of the stores, including gas stations and fast food restaurants carried nice examples and prices were peanuts compared to those of today. ROSS LILLIE was the company geologist and amassed a large hi end collection which he sold just a few years ago. His specimens are now in museums and for sale thru many dealers. ALAN GOLDSTEIN did a nice complete article on the district in 1997 for the Mineralogical Record. There is a small but very nice museum....The American Fluorite Museum..... in Rosiclare, near the processing facility. The Ohio River is scenic and includes a small auto ferry that goes back and forth for those sightseeing and wanting to cross the river. There are no bridges crossing the river in that immediate area.

When I started going down there, much could still be found. The processing facility still was in operation, but soon closed. They shipped in fluorite from other mining areas including Colorado so you could find odd colors and non-Illinois specimens with a bit of looking at the processing site. There were piles of material in back of the facility. Sadly, they were being flattened and crushed just at the time I started collecting. After that you had to search in and along the bushes around the edges of parking areas to find nice examples.

Those are some of my memories from about 12 - 18 years ago when I collected down there.

[Tobi]

Very cool information and photos! Instead of opening a new topic we should maybe move the whole thread to https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=1578 ?

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Done

[vic rzonca]

Historic fluorspar mining.

[Tobi]

Another awesome Illinois specimen, on display in Freiberg, Saxony:

[vic rzonca]

What's great about this site is the continuity of context. Please post this wherever you want. The comment will not be out of context. I love you guys!

[Tobi]

A typical combination from Denton Mine:

[Jesse Fisher]

The Denton Mine produced a huge amount of really nice specimens in it's day. That day is over 20 years gone, now, but good things can still be found. Here are a couple new ones to the collection.

[Turbo]

A pair of specimens from Denton Mine both displaying similar habits but on different matrices. The specimen on the left is on limestone and the one on the right is on fluorite. I was very happy bring this pair together in my calcite collection! I've seen only a couple of these "flame-like" calcites from Denton, perhaps they weren't as common, but then again the variety is endless from the fluorspar district.

[Tobi]

[Tobi]

Speaking of Denton Mine, I discovered this one in the Marburg Museum yesterday:

[Bob Harman]

These peculiar crystal groupings of jackstraw calcites were collected from the dumps of the fluorite processing center in Rosiclaire Illinois in April 2005.
At that time, shortly after the last Harris Creek Mining District mines had closed, some decent specimens could still be collected.