Qualla: National Mining Hall of Fame

National Mining Hall of Fame: Introduction

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Craig Talbert, CC BY 3.0. The rent is fifty cents a year. That was the deal Richard Moolick negotiated with the city of Leadville in the late 1980s -- a 110-year lease at half a dollar annually -- to house the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in a building that had served as both the town's high school and junior high. The mines that once sustained Leadville had closed, contributions were drying up, and the museum originally planned for Colorado School of Mines land in Golden needed a new home. What Leadville offered was not just cheap real estate but authenticity: a mining town with 67 historic mines on its doorstep, placing the nation's only congressionally chartered mining museum in the very landscape it commemorates.

Image: Craig Talbert | CC BY 3.0

National Mining Hall of Fame: From Schoolhouse to Shrine

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. The museum was incorporated in 1987, but the road to opening was anything but smooth. The original plan called for construction on land owned by the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. Then Leadville's mines began closing in the 1980s, and potential donors withdrew their pledges....

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

National Mining Hall of Fame: Underground Without Going Under

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James St. John, CC BY 2.0. Step inside and the museum pulls you beneath the surface -- literally. A walk-through replica of an underground hardrock mine gives visitors the feel of the tunnels where fortunes were dug from Colorado rock. Elsewhere, an elaborate model railroad re-creates the transportation ne...

Image: James St. John | CC BY 2.0

National Mining Hall of Fame: Presidents, Prospectors, and Rascals

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James St. John, CC BY 2.0. The Hall of Fame's inductee criteria cast a deliberately wide net. Candidates must have made significant contributions to the American mining scene, and consideration extends to prospectors, miners, mining leaders, engineers, teachers, financiers, inventors, journalists, rascals,...

Image: James St. John | CC BY 2.0

National Mining Hall of Fame: The Missing Miners

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James St. John, CC BY 2.0. Not everyone celebrates what the Hall of Fame chooses to remember -- or forget. Historian James Loewen, in his book Lies Across America, criticized the museum for overemphasizing scientists, executives, and owners of vast mining properties. He noted that only fourteen inductees -...

Image: James St. John | CC BY 2.0