[meteorite-list] NPA 03-14-1963 He Chased Fallings Stars, Harvey Nininger

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: Mansfield News Journal
City: Mansfield, Ohio
Date: Sunday, March 10, 1963
Page: 15 of "Family Weekly" insert

He Chased Falling Stars

By THEORDORE BERLAND

PEOPLE USED TO SCOFF at Harvey Nininger for chasing around the country 
looking for hunks of iron and stone that fell from the sky.  But they don't 
laugh at his meteorite hunting any more.
    Nininger, now 75 and living in retirement in Sedona, Ariz., came into 
his own with the arrival of the Space Age.  Scientists then realized that 
meteorites are the only bits of matter from beyond the earth that they can 
analyze chemically in their laboratories.
     At one time, nobody cared much that Nininger owned the largest and best 
private collection of meteorites in the world.  But as the Space Age was 
born, the demand for Nininger meteorites grew - and in 1961 Arizona State 
University bought most of his collection for more than a quarter-million 
dollars!
     Nininger first became interested in meteorites in 1923 when he was 
teaching biology at McPherson College in his native Kansas.  The night of 
Nov. 9 he spotted his first meteorite, and the night of that great ball of 
fire streaking across the sky thrilled him and stirred his curiosity.
     He turned to books about meteorites.  Soon he had read everything on 
the subject in the college library.  But that wasn't much, since meteorites 
were considered an appropriate subject for college study.
     But to Nininger, meteorites were "the most interesting aspect of our 
universe."  He wrote for books on falling stars.  He looked for accounts of 
meteorites in newspapers, asked people he met if they had seen any lately, 
checked out every report he heard about them, and combed Kansas farms for 
hunks of rocks and iron that had fallen from the sky.
    Before long, he was spending more time with meteorites than with his 
college classes.  In 1930 he quit teaching entirely and set up a 
meteorite-hunting headquarters in Denver.  His name became known all over 
the West, and reports of meteorite falls came to him from everywhere.
    At the report of a sighting, Nininger (and sometimes his wife Addie) 
would crank up the car, rattle down gravel roads, and stop and talk with 
ever eyewitness available.  Most often, the "eyewitnesses" had gotten their 
information second hand or third-hand.
     Only be doggedly traveling and interviewing could Nininger gleam enough 
verifiable facts to chart a meteorite's fiery path on a map.  Then he would 
estimate where it fell and search that area for a crater and scattered 
fragments.

IN A FEW YEARS, he had such a formidable collection that he decided to open 
the American Meteorite Museum in Sedona, Ariz., not far from the most 
fabulous meteorite crater in the world.  The giant hole - formed when a 
concentration of meteorites or a comet smashed into the desert some 50,000 
years ago - is almost a mile in diameter and deeper than the Washington 
Monument is high.
     The Arizona Crater became a rich source of meteorite fragments for 
Nininger's ever-growing collection.  And before long, his meteorite museum 
had become a popular tourist stop.
     His scientific visitors gave him his prickliest moments.  Their most 
frequent comment was "Hmmm, rather interesting, Mr. Nininger, but what use 
are these meteorites?"
     But Nininger's day was to come.  As the Space Age dawned, scientists at 
leading research centers began asking him to sell bits of meteorites that 
they could analyze.
     In the past few years, meteorites have provided clues to life elsewhere 
in the solar system.  They have been used in establishing the age of the 
earth at 4.5 billion years.  And they have taught engineers how to design 
rocket nose cones that will survive the blazing re-entry into the earth's 
atmosphere.

THE FINAL vindication of Nininger's meteorite-hunting career came in 1961 
when Arizona State University purchased most of his collection with National 
Science Foundation funds.
     Thousands of specimens were catalogued meticulously by Mrs. Nininger 
and shipped to the Tempe campus, where they are displayed as the Nininger 
Collection.
     Today, Harvey and Addie Nininger live in a new home on a small rise in 
Sedona.  Around the house are meteorites on end tables and meteorite book 
ends, reminders of their star-chasing days.
    The Niningers say they just want to enjoy their nine grandchildren and 
the scenery.  But Harvey has a small laboratory attached to his garage, 
where he still experiments with bits of meteorites. They both occasionally 
sneak out to the Arizona Crater nearby to hunt more fragments - and even go 
off on a wild meteorite chase once in a while.
     It's impossible to retire completely when you have hitched your wagon 
to a falling stars.

(end)