New Mexico Mining Museum
100 N Iron Ave, Grants, NM
Grants, NM
The only museum where you take an elevator down into a re-created uranium mine, telling the story of the boom that once made Grants the uranium capital of the country.
The New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants bills itself as the only museum of its kind, and its claim rests on what lies beneath the building: a full-scale, re-created underground uranium mine that visitors descend into by elevator. Instead of reading about mining behind glass, you walk the dim tunnels among drills, ore carts, and equipment, getting a genuine sense of the work far below the surface.
Grants owes its modern history to that mining boom. In the mid-twentieth century the discovery of rich uranium deposits nearby turned the sleepy Route 66 town into a boomtown almost overnight, drawing miners and prospectors and earning it the nickname of the uranium capital of the country. The museum tells that story, from the geology of the ore to the lives of the people who dug it, and the complicated legacy the boom left behind.
What Guests Love
- Riding down into a full re-created underground uranium mine beneath the museum
- Walking the mine tunnels among real equipment and drills as a miner would have
- The clear story of how a quiet town became a uranium boomtown almost overnight
- A hands-on, offbeat stop that breaks up the long drive along Interstate 40
Worth Knowing
- The re-created mine is the centerpiece, a walk-through underground exhibit reached by an elevator, not an actual working mine
- It is an easy stop right off Interstate 40 and old Route 66, good for stretching the legs on a cross-state drive
- The museum also serves as a local visitor center, useful for planning trips to nearby lava fields and monuments
- Uranium mining shaped the region deeply and left a complicated legacy for communities and the land, part of the story told here
Details
Grants, NM
Learn about New Mexico Mining Museum
Down into the re-created mine
The heart of the museum is its underground exhibit, a re-created uranium mine built beneath the building. You board an elevator, descend, and step out into tunnels lined with the real tools of the trade: drills, ore cars, timbering, and the machinery that miners used to blast, muck, and haul the ore.
Walking through, you get a feel for the cramped, dusty, dangerous conditions of underground mining, a world most visitors would otherwise never see. Interpretive displays along the way explain how the ore was located, dug, and processed, turning an abstract industry into something you can physically move through.
The uranium boom that made Grants
Grants began as a railroad and farming town on old Route 66, known for a time as a carrot-shipping center. Its transformation came in the 1950s, when rich uranium ore was discovered in the surrounding country during the atomic age, when demand for the mineral was soaring.
The find set off a boom. Prospectors and mining companies poured in, mines opened across the district, and the population and economy of Grants surged, earning it the title of uranium capital. For a generation the town thrived on uranium, until falling demand and the winding down of the industry ended the boom and reshaped the town once more.
The legacy of the boom
The uranium era left a deep and complicated mark on the region. The mining brought jobs and prosperity for a time, but it also brought lasting health and environmental concerns, particularly for the many Native and Hispano workers who labored in the mines and for the communities and lands near them.
The museum does not shy from the fact that mining was hard and hazardous work with consequences that outlived the boom. Understanding that legacy, the benefits and the costs together, is part of what makes a visit meaningful rather than simply a look at old machinery.
The town and getting there
Grants sits right on Interstate 40 and old Route 66, which makes the museum an easy and rewarding break on a long cross-state drive. The museum doubles as a local visitor center, a good place to gather information before heading out to the striking country nearby.
The town is any-season accessible, and the museum's underground core makes it a fine choice in hot or stormy weather. Grants also makes a natural base for the volcanic landscapes around it, from lava flows and ice caves to sandstone bluffs and an ancient inscription rock, so the museum often begins rather than ends a day of exploring.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Grants
El Malpais National Monument
About 10 miles south
A vast field of lava flows, cinder cones, lava tubes, and sandstone bluffs along old wagon and trade routes.
Mount Taylor
About 15 miles northeast
A high, forested volcano sacred to several Native nations, rising above Grants with trails and cool air on top.
El Morro National Monument
About 40 miles southwest
A sandstone bluff and waterhole carved with centuries of Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs and travelers' inscriptions.
Acoma Pueblo
About 30 miles east
Sky City, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America, atop a sheer mesa.