Hamilton Hill Mine, Jessieville, Garland County, Arkansas, USAi

Regional Level Types
Hamilton Hill Mine	Mine
Jessieville	Unincorporated Community
Garland County	County
Arkansas	State
USA	Country

A quartz mine located about 3 miles NE of Jessieville. Workings feature pits, 3 adits and 2 shafts. Mineralization is quartz veins in Womble Shale. Discovered after 1865 and worked for 25 years.

Quartz crystal mining was begun at Hamilton Hill shortly after the Civil War by William Hamilton and John Neal. Hamilton worked the deposit for about 25 years and did most of the development work. The mine workings consist mainly of three short adits, no more than 30 feet long, which were caved in 1945 ; two caved vertical shafts said to have been sunk to depths of 30 and 40 feet, respectively; and numerous small surface pits. Hamilton Hill reputedly produced the largest volume of crystals of any of the old mines in the Garland County area. It was particularly well known for producing important collector specimens.
In the summer of 1943, a few shallow surface pits were dug by John Ridgeway and George Clemmonts. It is unknown what they found at this time. George Clemmonts mined the deposit again with a small bulldozer in the 1960's with the help of a young Jim Coleman. Jim recounts collecting many truckloads of outstanding crystals and cabinet specimens of the highest quality at the time. The current whereabouts of these specimens is unknown as Jim does not have one in his personal collection. Others had mined the deposit with smaller machinery and little success in the 1970s and until 2013 no work had been done there. In early 2013 the mine was purchased by Avant Mining LLC. In early June 2013 Avant begun test digging on the old mine site with spectacular success. So far they have hit a major pocket of adularia and quartz combination specimens which are unique in quality and size for North America.
The above provided by James Zigras who is involved in the current specimen recovery areas there [2013].

Other Databases

Link to USGS MRDS:	10259725

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References