It was an honor for me to have known Dan Caudle, one of the founders of the greatest gem and mineral show in the world, the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show®, that premiered in a Tucson elementary school in 1955 and is now the hub—the “Main Show” at the Tucson Convention Center—of the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase.
Here’s how it all started. Born in 1922 in Dublin, Texas, Dan came to Tucson in 1942 while in the U.S. Army Air Forces, stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. In the 1950s, Dan’s career as an electrician landed him at the Clifton-Morenci copper mines in southeastern Arizona, one of the most important mining districts in the United States. Centered around the town of Morenci and supported historically by nearby Clifton, the mine has been active since the 1870s and has produced more copper than any other mine in North America.
Dan’s work at the mines exposed him to ore and turquoise, and he began buying and selling Morenci turquoise, fluorescent minerals, and general Southwestern minerals, specimens, and lapidary material gathered from abandoned mines. According to an account on tucsonlapidary.com, miners at the Morenci mine were literally bringing rough turquoise out in their lunchboxes in the early days, long before turquoise was tightly controlled.
In those days, Dan and his wife Betty, along with Clayton and Betty Gibson and others, began rockhounding in old mines, exploring mine dumps, and digging through mine tailings in Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada. Of course, this was in the days when nobody cared if rockhounds explored abandoned mines. Now, most mines are either sealed with backfill or fences cordon them off with accompanying “No Trespassing” signs…