Explore thousands of gems and minerals at this museum in the historic Pima County Courthouse

Gerald M. Gay

You could spend the entire day wandering the galleries of the University of Arizona Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum and still manage not to see everything.

Located in a section of the old Pima County Courthouse downtown, the museum has an estimated 3,000 specimens on display, pulled, sometimes literally, from every corner of the Earth, spread across 12,000 square feet of space.

Alfie Norville Gem and Mineral Museum — Chuck Huus, from Maine, takes a closer look at a display at the Alfie Norville Gem & Mineral Museum inside the historic Pima County Courthouse. The museum is dedicated to the preservation of minerals and meteorites and to educate the public.
Mamta Popat photos, Arizona Daily Star

A massive quartz cluster, one of the largest intact clusters ever mined in Arkansas, greets guests as they walk into the lobby.

There’s an Arizona Gallery with a larger-than-life recreation of the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee, complete with interactive schematics; a touch-and-feel zone where visitors can run their hands along different mineral samples; and a 116.76-carat Tsavorite Garnet dubbed the Lion of Merelani, on loan from the Smithsonian.

The museum is modern and state-of-the-art and has a little bit of everything, according to Elizabeth Gass, its exhibit specialist.

“We’ve had people spend an hour in the first gallery, before they realize that is only a third of what we offer,” Gass said. “It is about an hour-and-a-half trip to walk through on average. But that is really just glancing at things.”

The museum opened its doors last July, but will have its first real moment in the sun during this year's Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase.

Pre-pandemic, the annual event, which generally runs through mid-February, brought an estimated 65,000 people to Tucson each year. That number may be smaller in 2022 due to surging COVID numbers, but many of the shows are still happening after canceling in 2021 because of the pandemic.

The museum, which began construction at the courthouse in 2018, is named after Alfie Norville, a co-founder of the Tucson Gem and Jewelry Exchange show held each year as part of the showcase.

“She was a big jewelry lover,” Gass said. “She was interested in making Tucson a big hub for minerals, gems and jewelry. I believe they succeeded.”

The 3,000 specimens on display at the museum are a mix of pieces on loan and from the university’s own collection of more than 20,000 pieces. Until it was moved over, much of the collection resided at the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium on the UA campus.

Gass said the goal is to rotate about 20% of the museum’s gallery pieces per year.

“In the museum industry, that is an industrious percentage of change,” Gass said.

Gass said the museum is looking to attract a variety of visitors.

“We want to appeal to everybody,” she said. “To create an environment where people who have been in the field for a long time would be interested, but also offer ways for people who might not know a lot about it to learn more.”

The museum is just one stop that folks can make as they tour the city’s many Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase shows over the coming weeks. You can find a full list of events and a downloadable app through Visit Tucson or check out our story that highlights six shows to visit.