King's Manassa Turquoise: Field Guide to Colorado's 'Lick Skillet' Mine
The King mine near Manassa, Colorado produces the deep green turquoise the trade calls "Manassa Green." It is also the mine with the best-documented disagreement in this field guide — three sources, three different origin stories, and one of them comes from the mining family's own descendant.
From the Library: Pogue on the Lajara (King) deposit (1915)
1915 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1915, not today.
In 1915 Pogue knew this deposit by the nearest railroad town:
“The principal deposit of turquois in Colorado is near Lajara, Conejos County, in the southcentral part of the State.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 47 [5]
Pogue (1915) gave another date for the record, the year the find was made public:
“The discovery of the mineral was announced in 1901”
— Pogue (1915), p. 47 [5]
Pogue (1915) went on:
“and since then the locality has been considerably exploited with a series of pits, shafts, and tunnels by the Colorado Turquois Mining Co. In 1909 the mine was leased by several individuals, who established a lapidary shop in Colorado Springs to handle the output.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 47 [5]
Pogue (1915) noted that at the Lajara deposit there
“are abundant evidences, in the form of stone hammers, pieces of deerhorn, etc., of prehistoric mining activity.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 48 [5]
Pogue (1915, p. 48) described the best Lajara material as running from pale blue to a deep sky-blue, very hard, with attractive matrix where brown limonite is present. [5]
From the Library: Chambless & Ryan, Turquoise in America, Part One (2021)
2021 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2021, not today.
Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 171) also report the other date: according to Harvey and Harvey, I.P. King and his son Charles found the deposit in 1890, 13 miles south of La Jara and a mile and a half west of the Rio Grande, but did not work it because the stone was not then worth mining; they staked 12 claims in 1900. [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 170), money was so short that a local doctor in partnership with I.P. King sent his patients to work at the mine to pay off their bills. [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 171), production at the Lick Skillet, renamed the King Manassa mine, grew only much later, under I.P.'s son Charles and grandson Pete. [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 172), citing Sterrett, the Colorado mining company leased the mine to C.G. King of Manassa and to C.H. Wyman and H.E. James of Colorado Springs, who set up a lapidary in Colorado Springs to cut the turquoise. [3]
As of 2021, Chambless & Ryan described the stone and the mine's run:
“The mine produced a handsome turquoise matrix stone with colors of dark to light blue and greenish-blue and continued to produce throughout the next decade and, with some periods of inactivity, into the present day.”
— Chambless & Ryan (2021), p. 172 [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 172), the geologist E.S. Larsen, cited in the 1916 Mineral Resources report, found the mine owned by C.G. King and worked for the previous 10 or 12 years, with the turquoise largely sold or traded to Indians. [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 190), Harvey and Harvey reported that in 1939 Charles King and his family were running the La Jara mines at a profit, employing 12 people and producing 4,000 to 5,000 carats a year of stones from one to one hundred carats, with Native Americans the largest buyers and preferring more solid colors. [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 183), Bill King, son of Pete King and great-grandson of I.P. King, was one of the early innovators of backing cut cabochons, a technique that gained popularity in the late 1960s. [3]
According to Chambless & Ryan (2021, p. 191), as of 2021 not much turquoise was produced in Colorado beyond the work at Cripple Creek and King Manassa. [3]
From the Library: Lowry, Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone (2010)
2010 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2010, not today.
According to Lowry (2010, p. 136), Israel Pervoise King came west from South Carolina in the late 1800s in search of gold, opened a blacksmith shop in Manassa, and kept the blue and green stones he found on the mantel of a small inn run by his son's mother-in-law. [4]
According to Lowry (2010, p. 137), a traveling salesman staying at the inn in the early 1900s identified the stones as turquoise, the first time the Kings had heard of it, and urged them to keep mining and sell in New Mexico; Pervoise and his son Charles mined turquoise through 1906, and Charles's son Pete took it up in 1929. [4]
Lowry (2010) gives the name's origin in the hard years when Charles King's sons and son-in-law worked the mine:
“The young men never lost their sense of humor and referred to the King turquoise mine as The Lickskillet. Whatever there was to eat, you ate all of it, licked the skillet, and went back to work.”
— Lowry (2010), p. 137 [4]
According to Lowry (2010, p. 137), during the Depression the Kings hired day labor at ten cents a day, drilled blast holes by hand with a single jack and steel, set dynamite, and mucked out with shovel and wheelbarrow before later buying track and a hand-push muck cart. [4]
According to Lowry (2010, p. 139), Bill King purchased the Manassa mining claims in 1960, but they were not actively mined in larger quantities until 1980. [4]
According to Lowry (2010, p. 224), the prehistoric deposits are named for the I. P. King family, who came from Texas to the Manassa Valley in search of gold, found little gold but did find turquoise, on Pinon Mountain in Conejos County; nearby claims since the 1890s include the Nellie Bly, Mexico, Arkansas, Last Chance, Lajara and Sunset. [4]
From the Library: Turnbaugh, Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest (2007)
2007 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2007, not today.
Turnbaugh (2007, p. 46, caption) illustrated a 1950s pendant by Navajo (Diné) jeweler Fannie Platero, set in sterling silver with green turquoise from Manassa, Colorado, on a hand-wrought silver link chain. [6]
Turnbaugh (2007, p. 80, caption) illustrates a Navajo squash blossom necklace, ca. 1970s, whose silver naja and blossoms were set with green turquoise from the Manassa mine in southern Colorado. [6]
From the Library: Bassman, The Beauty of Navajo Jewelry (1997)
1997 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1997, not today.
Bassman (1997, p. 32) pictured a pin with a scalloped and stamped edge, dangles and a King's Manassa turquoise stone, artist unknown. [7]
From the Library: Ryan & Chambless, Turquoise in America Part Two: 1910–1990 (2020)
2020 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2020, not today.
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 93), Israel Pervoise (I. P.) King was born on March 25, 1855, in Pinnacle, Stokes County, North Carolina, and the family, which moved west on his inheritance, must have reached Manassa around 1889-1891, since a daughter was born there in November 1892. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 93), while prospecting east of Manassa I. P. King noticed a large hill about a mile and a half from the Rio Grande and found stone hammers left by prehistoric miners, but he did no mining there for about ten years, until he returned with his son Charles around 1900 and found a blue stone that he polished and set on his mantel. [8]
Ryan & Chambless (2020) quote George Kunz's report in the 1901 Mineral Resources of the United States on the new find:
“A large mass, reported to weigh 1,500 carats, was brought to Denver during the summer and greatly admired.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 93 [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 95), the Colorado Turquoise Mining Company and Charles King mined the claims off and on through the mid-1910s, and there was little activity after that until Pete King began mining them in the mid-1930s. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 97), after the Colorado Turquoise Mining Company stopped operating, Charles and Emma King located six claims on March 10, 1916: the Nellie Bly, Last Chance, La Jara, Sunset, Arkansas and Mexico. I. P. King had located some or all of them in 1900 but had not kept up the assessments on the original twelve, and these six became the core of the King Manassa. [8]
Emma King, in her own account quoted by Ryan & Chambless (2020), described where the family took its stone:
“We went to Albuquerque where most of the turquoise was used.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 97 [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 97), Charles and Emma King opened their own turquoise business in Albuquerque; some of their children stayed in Colorado to work the mine while others set up shops in Albuquerque, and Charles later worked as a turquoise cutter for Bell Trading Post. [8]
Bill King recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 98), that his father Pete and uncle Bert first mined the claim by hand steel, pick and shovel, and that Pete then built a compressor from a Model A engine block, tunneled along the veins, and made a hoist out of an old car. [8]
Bill King recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 99), that his father found a very large pocket where two veins met in the early 1940s, just before World War II, but was drafted into the Navy; the family turned the mine over to his younger brother Horace, and by the time Pete came back the pocket was gone. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 146), in early 1940 Pete King was working the King Mine at Manassa through old underground tunnels, following each streak of turquoise; his miner Harmon Day set wedges in the walls to hold planks so the crew could climb higher to set charges, and following one streak they found a chamber where two streaks joined, from which Pete later said he took out ninety pounds of turquoise a day for three years. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 146), the pocket had played out by the time Pete King came back from Navy service in the Pacific, and the claim was worked only sporadically in the late 1940s; Horace King mined the King Manassa claims from 1943, found a large blue-green nugget in 1946 that went to the State Bureau of Mines museum in Denver, and around 1950 started a cast jewelry business in Manassa. [8]
Bill King recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 146), that his father had the first cutting shop in Manassa, cutting turquoise and petrified wood, and that growing up in that shop is how he knew he would mine and cut turquoise. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 148), an important part of American turquoise history was the network of miners, cutters and sellers that grew out of intermarried Mormon families of the Manassa area, among them the Kings, Edgars, Smiths, Ottesons, Jacks, Gibsons and McGinnises; Travis and Vivian Edgar were the first of them to mine turquoise in Nevada. [8]
Ryan & Chambless (2020) sum up where that network began:
“The King family was the foundation that formed this network”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 148 [8]
Tom Otteson recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 151), that Pete King originally owned the old Lick Skillet claim ten miles or so east of Manassa, and that Pete got the young Lynn Otteson into turquoise by taking him out to mine it; his brother Danny added that their grandfather had worked at the King Manassa Mine. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 217), in 1969 Bill King worked out how to apply Devcon to the back of thin turquoise that had long been treated as waste, so it could be cut and used in jewelry; the success of the process let him move back to Manassa from Los Lunas, New Mexico. [8]
According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 217), Bill King acquired the old claims of the King Manassa Mine (the Nellie Bly, Last Chance, La Jara, Sunset, Arkansas and Mexico) and, under newer rules that allowed larger claims, consolidated them as the Lick Skillet 1-3. [8]
Ryan & Chambless (2020) give the family's reason for reviving the old name:
“using the old nickname the family had originally used when the claims were first located and money was so tight that the grease left in the pan had to be used.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 217 [8]
Bill King recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 217), that his grandmother sold the six claims in the 1960s, his father keeping one claim and part of another and Clifford Gibson taking the rest; Bill bought his father's claim, and years later, after the Gibsons' mortgage was foreclosed, he bought the rest from the bank. [8]
Randy Christensen, who grew up in Manassa, recalled in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020):
“Pete King had the mine, and later his son Bill worked it for many years.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 214 [8]
Bill King described the vein habit his father followed, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020):
“They pocketed about every fifteen feet, and then they pinched and cleared out, but he'd keep following the break.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 218 [8]
Bill King recalled, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 219), that in his father's day green turquoise was worth nothing, so his father mined the natural blue at the bottom of the streaks and left the green near the surface, which Bill later mined. [8]
Bill King's own view of the ground, in an interview published by Ryan & Chambless (2020):
“this is a poor mine for open pitting because the turquoise gets deep pretty fast and the deeper it goes, the more expensive it is to mine.”
— Ryan & Chambless (2020), p. 219 [8]
From the Library: Schiffer, Indian Jewelry on the Market (1996)
1996 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1996, not today.
In 1996 Schiffer pictured Manassa turquoise in bracelets he dated to the 1940s (he spells the mine "Menassa"):
“Three impressive King Menassa turquoise bracelets from the 1940s.”
— Schiffer (1996), p. 30 [9]
Field Notes by Mateo James
Branson's account is the one most often repeated. He records that the King Turquoise Mine near Manassa was among the many turquoise deposits mined by Indigenous people before the arrival of white men, and that it was rediscovered by I. P. King in 1890 while he was prospecting for gold. The original name was Lick Skillet, "due probably to the poor picking at the time."1
Schiffer independently gives the same rediscovery and the same year: the King turquoise mine near Manassa, rediscovered by I. P. King in 1890, producing turquoise that varies from light to sky-blue and a very attractive green with light brown matrix.2
On the stone itself, Branson is specific: one type, "Manassa Green," is an attractive deep green tinted with blue and mottled with a golden brown matrix, with colours ranging from very light blue through deep sky-blue into bluish-greens and deep greens.1
Lowry has Israel Pervoise King coming from South Carolina, while the King family account reported by Chambless & Ryan has him arriving from North Carolina in 1894. Lowry also has the Kings first hearing the word turquoise from a traveling salesman in the early 1900s, where Chambless & Ryan report a find in 1890 and claims staked in 1900. On the name, though, Lowry's Lickskillet story matches the family's. I tend to side with Chambless & Ryan.
Part One (2021), from Bill King's account, has I. P. King arriving in Manassa in 1894. Part Two (2020), by the same authors, works from census and birth records and places the family there by 1889-1891, because a daughter was born in Manassa in 1892. Part Two also has Pete King starting in the mid-1930s, while Lowry has him taking up the mine in 1929. I tend to side with Ryan & Chambless on the arrival date, and I have left Lowry's year on the page.
Chambless & Ryan's Part One (2021) treats the Lick Skillet as the old name of the King Manassa mine. In Part Two (2020), Tom Otteson remembers the old Lick Skillet as a claim of Pete King's ten miles or so east of Manassa, and his brother Danny names the King Manassa Mine separately. The books don't settle it, so both stay here.
Lowry has Bill King buying the Manassa claims in 1960. In his own interview in Ryan & Chambless (2020), Bill King says his grandmother sold the claims to Clifford Gibson in the 1960s, that he bought only his father's share, and that he got the rest back from the bank years later. I tend to side with Ryan & Chambless here, since the account is Bill King's own, but I have kept Lowry's date on the page.
The contradiction, presented three ways
Chambless and Ryan interviewed the family. According to Bill King, great-grandson of J. P. King, Israel P. King came to Manassa in 1894 from North Carolina with his family; while searching for minerals he came across indications of a prehistoric Indigenous turquoise mine; and in 1895 he filed claim on the Lick Skillet — so named, in the family's telling, "because the family was so poor they licked the skillet after every meal."3
That is a different date, a different origin state, and a completely different explanation of the name. Set the three accounts side by side:
| Branson / Schiffer | Chambless & Ryan (via the King family) | Lowry & Lowry | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | rediscovered 189012 | arrived 1894, filed 18953 | — |
| Family came from | — | North Carolina3 | South Carolina (p. 136)4 |
| "Lick Skillet" means | poor picking at the time1 | the family licked the skillet after every meal3 | — |
We are not going to collapse this into one clean sentence, because the sources do not support one. What can be said about relative weight: the Chambless and Ryan version is attributed to a named descendant of the mining family speaking about his own great-grandfather, which is the strongest provenance of the three for a family matter. That is a reason to take it seriously, not a reason to delete the others — Branson and Schiffer agree with each other on 1890, independently, and that agreement is itself evidence.
A page that shows you this disagreement is more useful than one that hides it. Anyone selling you "Manassa turquoise, discovered 1890" is quoting one branch of a genuinely contested record.
Working the deposit
Branson records that mining was carried on intermittently by members of the King family, that tunnelling was the method used up to the time of his writing, and that Bill King had by then moved to an open-pit operation.1 Lowry and Lowry place the deposits on Pinon Mountain in Conejos County, and name neighbouring claims including the Nellie Bly, Lajara and Sunset.4
Collector's Handbook
"Manassa Green" is a described type, not a guarantee. Branson defines it as deep green tinted with blue, mottled with golden brown matrix.1 That description is repeatable by other deposits, so the colour alone does not establish origin.
Expect the date to be contested. 1890 in Branson and Schiffer;12 arrival 1894 and filing 1895 in the family's own account.3
The name has two stories. "Poor picking" and "licked the skillet after every meal" are both in print, from different sources.13
Colour range is wide. Very light blue through deep sky-blue into bluish-greens and deep greens, plus spider web with brown-red matrix.1 A narrow "this is what Manassa looks like" claim is narrower than the source.
We strive for accuracy. This field guide entry is compiled from the published references cited below and is continuously updated with new information from the artists, their families, and the community. If you hold King family records or documentation bearing on the 1890 / 1894–95 question, get in touch — corrections are welcomed and credited.
Sources
- Branson, Oscar T. Turquoise: The Gem of the Centuries. Treasure Chest Publications, Santa Fe, 1975. The King's Manassa entry: rediscovery by I. P. King in 1890 while prospecting for gold; the original name Lick Skillet, "due probably to the poor picking at the time"; intermittent working by the King family; tunnelling and the later open-pit operation under Bill King; "Manassa Green" as deep green tinted with blue with golden brown matrix; the full colour range and the spider web with brown-red matrix. Cited without a page number.
- Schiffer, Nancy N. Turquoise Jewelry, revised 4th edition, 2008. Printed p. 11 (the King turquoise mine near Manassa, rediscovered by I. P. King in 1890; colour from light to sky-blue and green with light brown matrix).
- Chambless, Philip, and Mike Ryan II. Turquoise in America, Part One: The Great American Turquoise Rush 1890–1910. Callais Press, 2021. Printed p. 170 (Bill King, great-grandson of J. P. King; the family's arrival at Manassa in 1894 from North Carolina; the 1895 claim on the Lick Skillet and the family's explanation of the name).
- Lowry, Joe Dan, and Joe P. Lowry. Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2010. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2010.
- Pogue, Joseph E. The Turquois: A Study of Its History, Mineralogy, Geology, Ethnology, Archaeology, Mythology, Folklore, and Technology. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XII, Part II, Third Memoir. Washington, 1915. Public domain. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1915.
- Turnbaugh, William A., and Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh. Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest. Foreword by Barry M. Goldwater. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2007 (copyright 1996 and 2007; first published 1988). ISBN 0-7643-2577-9. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2007.
- Bassman, Theda. The Beauty of Navajo Jewelry. Photography by Gene Balzer. Walnut, California: Kiva Publishing, 1997. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1997.
- Ryan, Mike, II, and Philip Chambless. Turquoise in America, Part Two: 1910–1990. Callais Press, 2020. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2020.
- Schiffer, Peter N. Indian Jewelry on the Market. Text and photography by Peter N. Schiffer. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1996. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1996.
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