Fox Mine Turquoise: Field Guide to Nevada's Largest-Producing Cortez Mine

Fox Mine turquoise comes from the Battle Mountain and Cortez area of Nevada. Originally filed as the "Cortez claims" by Charles Schmidtlein and Johnny Francis in 1914, the property passed through several owners before Dowell Ward renamed it the Fox Mine in 1941 — the name under which it became one of Nevada's largest-producing turquoise areas.

Field Notes by Mateo James

The mine's origin story has a domestic quality to it. Lowry (~lines 12010–12029) records: "George Schmidtlein was the first individual credited with gathering some samples from this mine. It was his house servant who originally discovered the diggings and shared the location with George. In 1914, George's son Charles and his friend Johnny Francis filed claims, worked the area for one year, and then sold it in 1915 to William McGaw." The discovery credit belongs to someone unnamed in the historical record — a pattern that recurs across the turquoise rush era, where the person who first noticed the stone is often not the person who ended up holding the deed.

Ward's 1941 renaming was commercially significant. Lowry states directly that under the Fox Mine designation it "became one of Nevada's largest-producing turquoise areas" — a production record that places it among the state's important commercial deposits despite its relatively late entry into the named-mine literature.

Primary sources do not provide a specific color or matrix description for Fox Mine stone. This page reflects that gap honestly rather than filling it with description that cannot be traced to corpus documentation.

Related mine guides: Pages for Bisbee, Sleeping Beauty, Number Eight, Cerrillos, Royston, Kingman, Lander Blue, and Morenci mines are coming soon to this field guide.

References

• Lowry, Joe Dan. Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone (2010), ~lines 12010–12029. [Primary source — full ownership history.]