"Picher, Oklahoma" specimens

I think it’s fairly common knowledge, to most collectors with a moderate level of knowledge about the Tri-State District, that establishing correct or precise localities for specimens is extremely difficult. I treasure old specimens with a mine name (that I can be confident in), because the vast majority of old specimens come with the generic label “Picher, Oklahoma”. But as the name suggests, the District spans literally hundreds of mines in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Other specimens might be labeled, for example, Baxter Springs or Treece, Kansas; or Joplin, Missouri, which was the center of mining activity until about 1917, when Picher started to become the boom town.

I recently noticed a newly-uploaded enargite specimen under the Picher Field in Ottawa County, Oklahoma [Enargite, Picher Field, Ottawa Co, Oklahoma], that surprised me a bit, because I thought (mistakenly) these were only found in Kansas. Looking at the Mindat literature reference for enargite in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, I found an American Mineralogist (20:799, 1935) article by Alfred Ransome entitled “Enargite and plumbojarosite at Picher, Oklahoma” that I hadn’t seen before. However, in reading the article, I found that Ransome collected his specimen from the Barr Mine, which is actually in Treece, Kansas (only about a mile north of Picher). Even 76 years ago, “Picher, Oklahoma” was becoming the “catchall” locality for Tri-State specimens.

I consider the best reference for Tri-State geology and mineralogy, to be the U.S. Geological Survey, 1970, Professional Paper 588," Geology and Ore Deposits of the Picher Field, Oklahoma and Kansas", by E. McKnight & R. Fisher. Anyone really interested in one of the largest mining districts in the world, and the source of many great specimens, should keep an eye out for a reasonably priced copy. The paper includes a good large map showing most of the mine locations known in 1970.

According to McKnight and Fisher, the vast majority of enargite specimens came from the Kansas side of the district, but there were finds of enargite in Oklahoma as well, including at the Admiralty mine, a mile south of Picher. Therefore, if I acquired a specimen of enargite labeled “Picher, Oklahoma”, or similarly, I would probably have put it in Mindat under Ottawa County myself. Nonetheless, specimens with that label should always be taken with a grain of salt.

If you are just interested in the info, the USGS has put a pdf of the report on their website [pubs.usgs.gov]

Actually Joplin or just Tri State district is also a rather common location when the exact mine is not known. A lot of the mines were interconnected, so you could bring out a specimen from a mine shaft in Kansas that was actually found in Missouri or Oklahoma.

You just beat me to the punch, David. Plate 1 is the mine map and it shows that the Barr Mine is east and a little north of Treece (closer to Blue Mound) and over a mile north of the state line. So technically, the Ransome publication is probably not a valid reference for Ottawa County enargite. But, as the map also shows, you could, at one time, easily enter a mine in Oklahoma and collect in Kansas (or vice versa). Missouri too, I suppose.