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Improving Mindat.orgPhotograph of Boleite attributed to wrong locale

30th Mar 2005 06:35 UTCBob Meyer

Hi,

There is a photograph on Mindat of Boleite that is attributed to the Black Pine Mine, Flint Creek Valley, John Long Mtns, Phillipsburg area, Granite County, Montana, USA. It is a nice shot, taken by Jason B. Smith, but, unfortunately, it is not from the Black Pine Mine. I have seen this error before, most recently on the website of a mineral dealer who was attempting to sell a specimen of this material.

The Black Pine Mine has become the most well-known locality near Phillipsburg, but there were quite a number of other mines, with a history of mining dating back to the 1800’s, in that area. Indeed, the Black Pine Mine is not even in the Phillipsburg mining district proper, although it has a long history as well. The Black Pine Mine should be more appropriately be attributed to being near the town of Black Pine.

The town of Black Pine dates back to the late 1800’s. Unlike many of the other mining towns in that area and era, Black Pine wanted to be more “civilized.” There was a church, families with children, and no drinking establishments. I have heard that the town existed as a well-preseved ghost town until the 1960's, complete with hitching posts. The story that I have heard is that some fellow blew into Phillipsburg with the aim of developing that area and burned the town down or at least bull-dozed it. Apparently, the people of Phillipsburg were not pleased by this and about tarred and feathered him.

Now, there is just a large flat area near the Hardy shaft where the town was. I have found quite a number of artifacts while walking around the town-site. In one area, I found an indistinctly defined rectagular shaped area bordered by bricks. It appeared that a small building stood at that location, but there was very little left. At one end, I found the remants of door hardware, and I noticed some pieces of Quartz embedded in the soil opposite the old door. Prying them up, I discovered two very handsome specimens of Quartz, one well-terminated and undamaged, with a very interesting crust of copper mineralization on some faces. I surmise that the pieces had been kept as keepsakes by one of the miners. They would have looked nice sitting up on a ledge.

The Philipsburg mining district is primarily to the east and south of town extending to the ghost town of Granite, while the Black Pine mine is Northwest. The two areas have different geology. The Philipsburg mines had two main phases. The first, for the purpose of mining silver, played out around the end of the 1800’s. A second mining period occurred during World War I for the purpose of mining manganese. The mines near Phillipsburg produced specimens of Rhodochrosite (Dana locale), various black manganese minerals such as Pyrolusite, Calcite, and silver minerals, including nice wire silver and ruby silver.

The Boleite crystals from that area are distinctive. They should be attributed to being from near Phillipsburg, NOT to the Black Pine Mine. They are most likely of post mining origin, although this is not certain. They were collected from under the Bi-Metallic Mill (Red Mill) in Phillipsburg.

I have collected quite a number of times at the Black Pine Mine and there is some rumor that my garage (where a lot of unprocessed material is stored) might actually qualify as a sort of “Western outcrop” of the Black Pine vein system. I have found some very minute blue crystals that might possibly be Boleite, but they are nothing like the distinctive material in Jason’s photograph. Please note the other photograph (from my collection) of the same material in the Boleite gallery attributed to Phillipsburg, and there are two photographs of the material in the first edition of the “Encyclopedia of Mineralogy” by Roberts, Rapp, and Weber.

I had noticed before many of Jason B. Smith’s very fine photographs and wanted to contact him, but he is not in the Mindat member list.

Best Regards,

Bob Meyer

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