LITTLE ROCK — Rock shows
Central Arkansas Gem
and Mineral Show
9 a.m.-5 p.m. today, Jacksonville Community Center, 5 Municipal Drive, Jacksonville Free admission Info: (501) 982-4171, centralarrockhound.org
Quartz, Quiltz
and Craftz Festival
9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Oct. 14, Montgomer y County Fairgrounds, Mount Ida Rock and mineral show, quilt show and area arts and crafts Free admission Info: (870) 867-2723, mtidachamber.com
One of the Natural State’s most beautiful resources — quartz crystal — has been all around the world since settlers arrived in the Ouachita Mountains in the 1800s.
The sparkling beauty of Arkansas quartz has mesmerized people ever since. Many of us like to get down and dirty digging through the mud and dirt to retrieve and clean one of nature’s most lovely creations.
“When you find a crystal, you hold something that is at least 235 million years old and you are the first one seeing it,” says Mike Howard, mineralogist at the Arkansas Geological Survey and co-author of Collecting Crystals: The Guide to Quartz in Arkansas. “Some people really get into that.”
Dave Murray certainly does.
“When I dig a crystal out of the mud, I feel like Mother Nature made it just for me,” says Murray, 69, of Hazen. He and his wife, Lenora, are avid crystal diggers. Dave Murray is chairman of the Central Arkansas Gem and Mineral Show, which ends today at the Jacksonville Community Center.
Those who lived here before us also were fascinated by quartz. Howard says crystal arrowheads have been found in the state that date back to 8,000 B.C., and the mounds of the Plum Bayou people, which were constructed around A.D. 700-1000, contained crystal implements that scientists think were used for ceremonies.
Quartz crystals have also been called Arkansas diamonds and Hot Springs diamonds (real diamonds also are found in Arkansas). They are the glittering focal point of costume jewelry that was very popular in the 1950s and ’60s. Quartz crystals have been sold out of the back of horse-drawn wagons, in souvenir and rock shops and at high-end retail operations such as Crystal Springs Gallery in Hot Springs. They’ve flown in World War II aircraft as part of radio oscillators and are inside many computers. Quartz crystals are suncatchers above the windowsills of many an Arkansas home and are prized by major museums around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution.
No wonder quartz is the official state mineral.
BRINGS ’EM RUNNING
How important is quartz crystal to the state?
“Without quartz and Lake Ouachita, Mount Ida would be in trouble,” says Maureen D. Walther, executive director of the Mount Ida Area Chamber of Commerce. “I would say it’s 80 to 90 percent of what brings people to us.”
Joe David Rice, tourism director at the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, agrees: “Quartz is pretty important for tourism, it’s unique to Arkansas.” His department includes footage of crystal digs in its promotional videos.
“Crystals and the Crater of Diamonds are draws for tourists,” says Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs (formerly the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau). “Foreign visitors are enthralled as well.”
IN THE HILLS
Arkansas’ quartz veins run mostly along the Ouachita Mountains. Most of today’s commercial crystal mining is focused on the Mount Ida area in Montgomery County and the Jessieville area in Garland County.
To many, Mount Ida is synonymous with Arkansas crystals.
“They call themselves the crystal capital of the world,” Howard says.
“We’ve certainly put it out there,” Walther says of the chamber’s promotional efforts.
“Arkansas quartz is special,” says Robert Simmons, co-author of the best-seller The Book of Stones. “It’s some of the most beautiful and perfectly formed quartz crystal in the world.
“The best Arkansas quartz is transparent, its crystals formed with sharp, articulated edges and planes; the variety of forms of Arkansas crystal is really wide.
“The finest I’ve seen come from the Jessieville area; the tiny little ones are just as wonderful and carry the same qualities as the big ones; it’s the energy of the earth.”
He also expresses an admiration for solution quartz from the Jeffrey quarry in North Little Rock. It is called solution quartz because early collectors thought the crystals were still growing in their original gelatinous clay.
AROUND THE WORLD
“There’s not a major museum in the world that doesn’t have a nice large specimen of Arkansas quartz, if they have a natural history section,” Howard says. “There’s a piece from Mount Ida in the Smithsonian that is 6 by 4 feet; I’ve seen some in dealers’ collections that would put that to shame that have an asking price of $1 million or $2 million.”
“Jim and Ron Coleman took Arkansas crystal to the world,” says Leonard Pousardien of Greers Ferry, a former North Little Rock rock shop owner and jewelry maker. Pousardien has a collection of rock crystal from the Blocker Lead No. 4 mine near Jessieville, now owned by Ron Coleman. It was a source for oscillator quartz during World War II and was once operated by the Colemans’ grandfather.
The Coleman brothers took Arkansas crystal to trade shows in Europe and Asia before the Tucson, Ariz., Gem and Mineral Show became an international marketplace in the early 1980s.
SPIRITED TRADE
A cultural trend in the United States also fueled the market for Arkansas crystal.
“The Colemans saw a business opportunity in the New Age movement in the late ’70s and turned out promotions that appealed to that market,” Howard says. And sales went through the roof. “For the very best quality crystals, prices reached as much as $500 to $700 a pound.”
Up to that point Arkansas quartz mining had been mostly a family-operated industry led by the Coleman, Burrows and Stanley families. As prices soared, speculators came in, bought mines and started producing.
“A lot of people came in to get rich, then the market crashed in the early and mid-1980s,” says Jim Coleman, a third-generation quartz crystal miner based near Jessieville. “You gotta like this business to make it work; some days it’s like digging a ditch, and when you find something good, you gotta find someone who wants it.
“Today, we can get $100 a pound for our very best crystals, but it’s got to be very, very good.”
With the recession, foreign markets for Arkansas quartz have shrunk. “At one time, over half of our business came from foreign markets,” Coleman says.
Richard Wegner began his mining operation in 1980 and operates mines near Mount Ida.
“I bought land near Mount Ida and built a home,” he says. “I noticed some old digs from the Depression era on our land and decided I’d pursue crystal mining. I hit it at the right time.”
He went from two to 30 employees with three mines and a warehouse in California. Today, he employs about 10 people.
“The market plateaued in the early 1990s, and it’s still in that plateau,” he says.
Wegner’s mines are known for their “phantom crystals” and what he calls “large tonnage pieces in perfect condition.” Phantoms occur when a new crystal is formed over an existing one. The older crystal is visible and is the “phantom.”
“Europe used to be a huge market for us until the economic downturn,” he says. About 25 percent of his business is overseas. “But tourism is growing and that’s the good news.”
During the boom times, Coleman says, he had as many as 42 employees. Now it’s eight to 10 part-timers.
Wegner expects an upswing. “We’re getting ready to gear up production. I think prices for the museum-quality pieces will really take off again.”
DOES IT OR DOESN’T IT?
Quartz crystal exhibits a piezoelectric property, meaning that applying and releasing pressure on quartz causes it to generate electricity. Perhaps because of that and other physical properties, many people believe quartz has healing powers.
Such belief goes back thousands of years. India’s holistic Ayurveda system, which dates back around 5,000 years, has teachings on using gemstones and metals to help maintain health.
Arkansas crystals are at the center of treasure vases made by Lama Kunga Rinpoche of Kensington, Calif., a Tibetan who first came to Arkansas in the early 1990s to buy crystal and has since led numerous retreats in the state.
In Collecting Crystals, Howard cites the Renaissance in Europe as a time when belief in the healing and protective powers of stones was popular. And American Indians used quartz crystal for spiritual and healing purposes.
“In cultures where there were shamans, if crystals were there, they were used in healing, as talismans and for spiritual purposes,” Simmons says.
The New Age movement embraced many of those ideas, and writers such as Simmons, Judy Hall (The Crystal Bible) and Melody (Love Is in the Earth) are among its bestknown proponents.
Simmons’ The Book of Stones lists more than 350 stones and their scientific and metaphysical qualities. He leads workshops on how to use crystals and other stones.
“Arkansas crystal has purity and clarity,” he says. “It is programmable and most effective in amplifying the intention we put into it if we meditate with it. Arkansas quartz energy is clear, pure and sweet. I have a real affection for it.”
As do others.
“A lot of people carry a crystal in their pocket to keep more grounded, stuff like that,” Coleman says. “But I do know this: In the mine, if you get cut by the quartz, take a big gob of that clay, smear it on the cut, and in three days it will be well.”
Howard’s more doubtful: “If people believe it does and it works for them, that’s their business, but I don’t think they have healing power.”
“People have a given set of talents,” Wegner says. “Crystal is a tool, do you have the skill set to work with it? The power is inside you. It’s a tool, not a crutch.”
“I think there are some healing qualities to quartz,” Murray says. “I’m not into it as deep as others, but I see no reason to feel otherwise.”
But for mineralogist Howard, it comes down to this:
“When I walk into a room with a big display of quartz crystals, I feel good ... it perks me up. If I see a specimen that’s clean and well displayed, it’s like a master work of art. It’s God’s handiwork.”
Style, Pages 51 on 10/07/2012