Maine Mineral and Gem Museum Bethel

[peakbagger]

A bit off topic but may be of interest. I had a friend visiting during one of the hot and humid days last week. We made a run over to Bethel to the new Maine Mineral and Gem Museum. Its quite a surprising museum for Bethel Maine with a lot of audio and visual effects. The exhibits are a caliber that I would associate with a national museum. Folks may not know that area of Western Maine has been a hot spot for gem grade mining for 100 plus years. A wealthy couple donated their collection and the funds to build the place. My guess is for a typical guest its about a 1 hour walkthrough. The benefactors are also big time meteorite collectors and one claim to fame is the museum has a larger collection of moon rocks than Nasa (from meteors that originated from the moon). They also have a large collection of Martian rocks from the same sources. If you are looking to kill some time on a soggy day while in the area its worth a trip.

 

[srhigham]

Does this museum have any relationship or lineage back to the displays that Perham had in their Paris, Maine store?

 

[peakbagger]

Yes, there is quite bit of history on the Perham's and the various off shoots at the museum. According to volunteer, the benefactors behind the museum have bought the Perham's store and are restoring it.

 

[srhigham]

Much of the Perham's "mini-museum" ended up at Creaser's Jewelry in Paris. I haven't been up there in a few years. I wonder if the Creaser's stuff will end up in the new Bethel museum.

 

[peakbagger]

Unless they deliberately left out one participant they seemed to go into a lot of detail of the various parties and mine activities including a lot of oral interviews.

 

[NHClimber]

Just north of Bethel was a large tourmaline find. Plumbago Mountain I think. You can see on Google maps the areas that were dug.

 

[Lost Dad]

The same couple that are the benefactors for the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, Mary McFadden and Larry Stifler, are also significant land owners in the area just south of Bethel. They own 10,000+ acres and actively encourage recreation on their properties. In fact, they employ a trail builder and have developed hiking trails in the Greenwood/Albany/Bethel area. Some of the hiking trails include Sanborn River Loop, Oversett Pond/Mt, Long Mt and also a network of mountain bike trails on Vernon St near the Bether/Albany line.......Back on topic

 

[Andrew]

Back on Topic....

Thanks for the heads up on this peakbagger. Went yesterday and were quite impressed by the quality of the effort towards interpreting the collections. Having been involved in interpretive display development and a lifetime of visiting parks and museums, I was really impressed by the methods. The collections themselves are beyond astounding in both quantity and quality and almost entirely from Maine, and literally from out of this world.
We spent over 2 hours there with our very engaged 10 year-old and could have spent more time.

 

[peakbagger]

Glad you liked it. The miscellaneous collections room down to the left of the store as you exit has some varied things that probably would be of interest to adults but probably a 10 year old would run past.

 

[vegematic]

Thank you for calling attention to this peakbagger. And Lost Dad is correct, The Stifler-McFadden family are very generous with their local land and are (or have already done so) working with the local land trust to conserve much of their property.

I worked at Gould Academy in Bethel until a couple years ago and we would bring our chemistry and astronomy students over to the Museum for some hands-on learning. They really love working with kids of all ages there. It's a great place to support.

 

[sierra]

I am going to look into this location as Bethel ME I am not familiar with. One thing I enjoyed living out west was minerals and their popularity. I've always enjoyed collecting interesting rocks (mostly from summits) and gem stores out west were quite fascinating. I would love to see the moon rocks as well. Slightly off topic, a few years back there was a reality show, that followed gemstone miners in CO, it was very interesting to watch how they went about prospecting. Aquamarine and Topaz were the primary goals.

 

[Beckie and Prema]

And I am going to Bethel real estate places (or Evens Notch, etc) as soon as I can retire. Just recently discovered how nice Bethel is; will check out the museum next time we're up there.

 

[Andrew]

Glad you liked it. The miscellaneous collections room down to the left of the store as you exit has some varied things that probably would be of interest to adults but probably a 10 year old would run past.

The Discovery Room. This was an interesting area that held more surprises than we expected, and it can be visited without paying to enter the museum area if you are really short on time. It was a cool place and method for the curators to display items in groups that are related to astronomy, space exploration, minerals/geology. The perimeter of the room has stacks of shallow display drawers under wall displays, with each drawer or set of drawers containing related items. Its a good way to make a large quantity of items available for convenient viewing, without having an overly cluttered display; and provides some focus on the groupings. An example being opening one drawer and finding numerous commemorative coins for space launches and opening the one below to find personal handwritten notes from various presidents to astronauts.
Just a great way for someone to share their collections with everyone else. And there were a lot of empty drawers waiting to house more items.