Battle Mountain Turquoise: A Name, Not a Mine

Part of the Turquoise Mines field guides and The Southwest Jewelry Guide.

Battle Mountain is a town in northern Nevada, and since at least the 1970s it has also been a name on turquoise. Jewelers set it, traders went north to buy it, and a 2008 mine list gives it a line of its own. The one thing our books can’t agree on is whether there was ever a mine behind the name.

Is there a Battle Mountain mine?

Three of our books answer three ways, and we print all three.

Branson, writing in 1975 under his entry for the Blue Gem Mine near the town, said no:

“Uninformed persons have mistakenly called this "Battle Mountain" turquoise but there is no "Battle Mountain" mine.”
— Branson (1975), p. 17 [1]

Lowry, in 2010, lists it as one of the Blue Gem’s own names. Its claims “have been known as The Contention, Pedro Lode, Turquoise Tunnel, and Battle Mountain.” [2]

Ryan and Chambless’s glossary uses it as a group name. It lists the Copper Basin claims (Turquoise King, Myron Clark, Blue Gem Lease, Contention, Pedro Lode, Turquoise Tunnel, Copper Canyon) as “often referred to collectively as Battle Mountain.” [3]

So, no mine of that name; one claim among several; or a whole cluster of workings. Each book is speaking for itself, and we don’t pick between them. What all three share is the ground. The name points to the Copper Basin country south of town, where the Blue Gem sat.

How the name was used

The name was in use in the 1970s trade, whatever Branson thought of it.

  • A 1975 caption on Charles Loloma’s work, in Ray Manley’s Portraits & Turquoise of Southwest Indians, points to “a wooden ring set with Battle Mountain turquoise.” [4]
  • A 1975 caption in the Arizona Highways Turquoise Blue Book reads, in full: “Battle Mountain turquoise in silver by Lawrence Saufkie.” [5]

Ron Alexander, who set up a jewelry factory in Gallup in the mid-1970s for Dave Tite of Desert Indian Traders, remembered the buying trips:

“I’d go around with him; we’d go to Kingman and we’d go up to Nevada and buy Battle Mountain, just tromping around, buying high-grade turquoise, and making jewelry.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 256 [3]

He says “buy Battle Mountain”, not “buy turquoise at Battle Mountain”. By then the name had become the stone.

The name has outlived the decade. Schiffer’s 2008 list of mines by location gives Nevada’s “Battle Mountain” its own entry, separate from “Blue Gem (also called Contention and Turquoise Tunnel)”. [6] Lowry and the glossary, above, tie the name to those same claims.

The mines around the town

If a piece is sold as Battle Mountain, the town alone won’t tell you which hole it came from. Our books place several mines by it:

  • Blue Gem. Branson’s “this one, near Battle Mountain,” is the mine his warning is about. [1] Our Blue Gem page covers it in full.
  • Lander Blue. Branson put it “between Battle Mountain and Tenabo in Lander county.” [7]
  • Darling Darlene. The Ryan and Chambless glossary puts it “15mi W of Battle Mountain.” [3]

What the record doesn’t hold

None of our books says who first sold turquoise under the name, or when. None tells you how to separate “Battle Mountain” from Blue Gem by eye. Our 1975 witnesses are jewelry captions and a trader’s memory, not mine records.

Field Notes by Mateo James

A town name on a stone is a promise about ground, not about a hole in it. Battle Mountain is the honest version of that problem. The name is real, the jewelers who used it were serious, and the man who wrote the 1975 book on it still said no mine carried the name. Ask the seller which claim. If the answer is “Battle Mountain,” you have learned where the stone was sold from, which is not nothing, and not the same thing.

How this page is sourced. Printed works are cited by page and describe conditions as of their dates. Where our books disagree, we show each one and say whose claim it is. If you know better, contact us.

Sources

  1. Branson, Oscar T. Turquoise: The Gem of the Centuries. Santa Fe: Treasure Chest Publications, 1975, p. 17. Statements describe conditions as of 1975.
  2. Lowry, Joe Dan, and Joe P. Lowry. Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2010, p. 224.
  3. Ryan, Mike, II, and Philip Chambless. Turquoise in America, Part Two: 1910–1990. Callais Press, 2020, pp. 256, 344, 345.
  4. Ray Manley’s Portraits & Turquoise of Southwest Indians. Text by Clara Lee Tanner and Joe Ben Wheat. Tucson: Ray Manley Photography, 1975, p. 76.
  5. Stacey, Joseph, ed. Turquoise Blue Book and Indian Jewelry Digest. Phoenix: Arizona Highways, 1975, p. 78.
  6. Schiffer, Nancy N. Turquoise Jewelry. Revised 4th ed. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2008, mine list, unpaginated.
  7. Branson, Oscar T. Turquoise: The Gem of the Centuries. 1975, p. 26.

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