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

[almitt]

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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