Opal Mining in Idaho in The Common Room

A final episode from our 1983 Rockhound Trip. (I am writing this, illustrated with photos, to help Husband remember.)

We’re off to try a hand (his) at opal mining in Idaho.

… Lima, Montana, where we spend the night at Kalbas Corners.
The next morning, it is only a 30 mile drive to Spencer, Idaho where we sign up and take a bus (old, yellow school type) to the Spencer Opal Mine. Husband rents a pick. He has a rock hammer.

This place is another of the mine-for-a-day for a fee places. Diggers pay $15 per day and may take away 5 pounds of opal material. (This is opal plus matrix.) Matrix is the rock surrounding the opal, which forms in a band, usually inside a geode. Any excess (over 5 pounds) costs $3 per pound. Removing the opal from the matrix is a delicate job, done in a jeweler’s or rock hound’s workshop. Non-diggers must stay on the bus, in the parking lot, which is actually right next to where the diggers work.

The acquiring of opal here is not really digging. It is hard rock mining, which is a little like being on an old-fashioned southern chain gang. One reduces big rocks to little ones with a pick or hammer and wedge.

Another similarity is that one is restricted to a particular area. This area is about the size of two football fields and looks a little like a moonscape There are big rocks on top of small boulders, on top of bigger boulders, on tops of — well, you get it.
The perimeter is marked off by little stakes linked by string, with the occasional red rag flag. Beyond this, there is an area with some soil, a little grass and a small building. Instead of armed guards, there are several VERY large Doberman dogs. We are told that we are quite safe as long as we DO NOT cross the perimeter. O-o-o-o-K.

Several rows of seats have been removed from the bus to leave a cargo space. The back door is opened and Husband takes up his pick and marches off with the other “diggers.” He is well over six feet and, in those days, not badly put together, but he is dwarfed by the others - huge blonde, blue-eyed fellows - one older, the rest seemingly in late teens or early twenties.

I sit on the bus with my book. Casting an occasional eye out to watch Husband, my glance catches the glance of an older woman, also large (not fat)and blonde.

“Well, “she says pleasantly, “They seem to be enjoying it. Men are funny, aren’t they?”

Turns out that she is the wife of the older big man and the others are her sons. (I shudder at what their birth must have been like.) They are farmers in Iowa and are on a rare vacation.

When lunch-time comes, I open our cooler and Husband and I lunch on lunchmeat sandwiches and chips, with water. We converse with the Iowans while they lunch on thick roast beef sandwiches. (Who knows where they came from. Surely they didn’t come all the way from Iowa.) The boys wash them down with quart bottles of cold milk from their big cooler.

The older man says,

“We always raise three crops. The first ‘un is for the government. They always get first cut. The second crop is for the bugs. They come in mid-summer. The third crop’s for ourselves. Well, this year the bugs didn’t come, so we put away the second and come on vacation to relax.”

This he said while sitting there covered in sweat and rock dust, with an enormous sledge hammer lying at his feet. The lusty laughter let us know that it was an oft told and well-loved story and we joined in the laughter joyfully.

Husband managed to get some geodes with a little opal banding. The big Iowans loaded down the bus with broken rocks. I suppose it had some opal. I couldn’t tell, but Oh they had a good time and it was great to be around them.

Gave me a real soft spot for Iowans.

Husband developed soft spots too. They were called blisters. We never again went rockhounding except where the rocks could just be picked up from the ground.

Neither did Husband ever again shovel, hammer, chip or do any similar thing. He doesn’t even want to go into hardware stores. He says that he developed an allergy to tools with handles.

Last updated February 24, 2016