[meteorite-list] NPA 11-01-1970 La Paz, Klamath Falls Meteorite Found (Again)

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: News Journal
City: Mansfield, Ohio
Date: Sunday, November 01, 1970
Page: 2-D

Missing Meteorite Found in Oregon

By CLARENCE ZAITZ

     KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (UPI) - One of only four meteorites which have been 
discovered in Oregon was subsequently lost for 18 years until a researcher 
found in the a collection at the University of New Mexico.
     And the man who originally found it in 1952 says he knew all along 
where it was - he just didn't know anyone was looking for it.
     It was the first Oregon meteorite found in 50 years. When Jack Halsell 
made the discovery, he didn't know what he had.
     Halsell was working for a logging firm north of here when he was 
clearing rocks from a road. He was picking them up and tossing them to one 
side. What attracted his attention, he recalls, is that rock was much 
heavier than the rest.
     He knew something was wrong when he couldn't pickup the small rock with 
one hand.
    "I've thrown a lot of rocks since then," he said, "But never like that 
one."
     The rock was the size of lunch paid and weighed 37 1/2 pounds. "I just 
put it on a stump." Halsell recalls, "and took it home in my pickup."

     The rock lay around the Halsell backyard until one day he managed to 
hacksaw a piece off. He took the fragment to a friend to analyze and he 
quickly assessed the material as part of a nickel-iron meteorite.

     The fragment eventually ended up in the H.H. Nininger collection at 
Arizona State University in Tempe.
     Halsell sold the large mass to Dr. Lincoln La Paz of the University of 
New Mexico for $93. "They paid me by the pound for it." Halsell remembers, 
he had to make a special box to ship the meteorite in.

(end)