[meteorite-list] Arizona Daily Sun Nininger Moves to Crater Post 1

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 12:04:28 -0500
Message-ID: <45AA629C.3060601_at_kconline.com>

Hi Mark and all,

Since Mark posted the newspaper article about the Nininger's move from
Denver to the Meteor Crater location, I thought it might be fitting to
post my Nininger Moments in regards to this move. Anyone wanting to read
more of the Nininger Moments can go to Marks web page and search under
Nininger Moments. Enjoy.

http://www.meteoritearticles.com/mitterlingmain.html


Nininger Moments #6 - The Nininger Museum Part 1

On a now deserted road where grass grows in the cracks of the now famous
and former route
66, and just a few miles north of Meteor(ite) Crater there was once a
building that housed the
Nininger Meteorite collection. The building was chosen because of its
location near the meteor
crater. These days its location is a ruin (as mention on the list) but
in its hay day it saw numerous
people stopping on the way out west or heading back toward the east.
Built by the bare hands
of one white man and the help of the local Indians the structure stands
even to this day.

Nininger leased the property and modified the plumbing facilities to
accommodate
the visitors that would be traveling along the route. Nininger had never
heard of
a meteorite museum and even though this was located along a lonely road
far from
any larger city the Nininger's decided to make a go of this venture. A
place along
a well traveled road next to a meteorite crater in the year 1946 and
located twenty
and forty miles to the closest towns. Nininger moved his collection from
Denver 750
miles away to the location which was no small task. The total weight of
the collection
was 16,000 pounds or about 8 tons! Packing the collection took weeks of
labor and
over two hundred crates had been loaded onto a van which would move the
collection there.

Two of the largest meteorites taken there were the Hugoton weighing 800
lbs. and the Morland
weighing only a hundred pounds less. There were eighteen iron specimens
weighing from 180 lbs
to more than 400 lbs. The iron specimens were not crated but were a
danger to everything else
in the van. Thousands of smaller specimens were also taken and carefully
wrapped and place
carefully into the containers for the journey. Many of these specimens
were worth several times
their weight in gold. The collection had been gather over a time of
about 23 years and
represented all of the Nininger's life earnings. Moving the collection
was risky to the
Nininger's as it did represent so much to them. A transportation agent
was carefully
selected and it was required that the cargo be sealed and open by them
after delivery
to the location of the museum. Insurance posed a problem as meteorites
did not fit any
of the normal classification in order to insure. The total cost of
shipping the collection
was one thousand dollars and the time to ship was figured at about 24
hours with
two drivers.


The van did not arrive as expected on the first day and was of concern
to the
Nininger's. After the van didn't arrive on the second day or even the
third day
The Nininger's became very concerned. Nervously the Nininger's started
to trace
the route the van would take in order to try to find it on its route.
Finding a wrecked
van at the side of a road and heading their way with the labeling of the
trucking firm
they had hired caused them much grief but soon they realized that it was
only nuts
and bolts laying out on the side of the road. They soon returned and on
the fifth day
a van arrived in the afternoon and backed into their location. The van
that they had
packed was not the same as the van that had arrived nor was the driver.
When the
they opened the door Nininger's heart sank as he could see that crates
had been
broken, crates were mixed up from the move and it was obvious that care
had not
been taken in moving the crates from one van to the next. No equipment
was at hand
to move the heavy crates into the museum so they proceeded to unload the
contents
of the van with the help of some friends, the van's driver and and
Indian that had
received a lift from the van's driver. The unloading took many hours of
time with some
of the most heaviest meteorites rolled off into the museum yard.
Unloading continued
until just about dark on the evening of October 9th. On the evening of
the same night,
the Giacobinnid-Zinner meteor shower occurred and many meteors were
observed
by the Nininger and their guests. The shower a fitting prelude to the
opening of the
Nininger Museum of Meteorites.

Source: Find A Falling Star By H.H. Nininger

The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey
Nininger
and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of the items
written in the
moments might be old out dated material and the reader is advised to
keep this in mind.

--AL Mitterling
almitt at kconline.com



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Received on Sun 14 Jan 2007 12:04:28 PM PST