Galen Kill and His Rock Pile
By Ray Grant and Steve Decker

How Many Volunteers Does It Take?

(Continued from page 1)

time is the restoration of the Swallow Mine stamp mill into working order. This project started in April of 1996 and continues today. There are old stamp mills around, but they are not in working order. Part of the restoration included training and qualification for the Monday Crew to become mill operators (Millmen). This

Old and new, historical mining equipment in front of new state office building.

     Galen Kill, 97 years young, has donated a quantity of rocks and lapidary material to the Foundation.   
     Mr. Kill has been a rockhound for over 60 years and accumulated a tremendous amount of material over that time. He collected obsidian, petrified wood, agate, jasper, chalcedony, and especially fire agate and it formed a large pile in his yard.
     The City of Phoenix told him that it had to be cleaned up and they were planning to remove it.   
     Rather than have it go to the landfill, he wanted to share it with others and invited everyone who was interested to come and help themselves.
     When Steve Decker heard from a neighbor that Mr. Kill's material was available, he notified Foundation Members via email.  Ken Dunham, Ray Grant, Gary Spraggins, and others were able to get to Mr. Kill's house to rescue some of the rocks from being taken to the dump.
     It turned out that Ken Dunham, a Foundation member and leader of the September field trip, got started collecting minerals because of Galen.  When Ken was 14  years old he used to deliver the newspaper to Galen's washing machine repair shop and rock shop on Osborn Road. Ken's interest was kindled by the interesting agates in Galen's store window.
     We rescued a lot of fire agate, Petrified Wood and Obsidian that will be available for sale at the Flagg Show thanks to Galen Kill.

was completed in California at the Mariposa Historical Society when they trained the Monday Crew on the operation of the stamp mill.
Charlie Connell, who works for Arizona Public Service (APS) at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, heads the "Monday Crew". The rest of the crew include retired individuals Ev Dixon, a small business owner, John Hollas, a mining engineer from Montana, Kim Rose, an appellate court judge, Steve Sharley an APS electrician, and Morris Jackson, a nuclear industry contractor. All except Kim Rose belong to the Arizona Prospectors Association, which meets at the Museum on the third Tuesday of the month at 7 PM. Kim Rose belongs to the Arizona Leaverites which meet at the Museum on the fourth Tuesday.

Monday crew getting the tire rim in place.

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