[meteorite-list] Nininger Moment #6

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:18:27 2004
Message-ID: <3E4FD69F.C74158C9_at_kconline.com>

Subject: A Nininger Moment 6
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1998 03:30:57 -0500
From: almitt <almitt_at_kconline.com>
To: "meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>

                                        The Nininger Museum

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 hand 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 specimen 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

--AL

Note: (off topic) On the way back from Tucson and while listening to talk radio from
a local Texas station, I heard of a similar problem that a young mom had had with a
moving firm found on the internet. They wouldn't move her entire contents as quoted
so she left half of them out east (many items that she needed) and were still trying
to
charge her 9 times the price originally quoted for what was shipped. Seems that at
least some things don't change over time and this reminded me of the Nininger's move.
No doubt there more repeatable movers out there than this one.
Received on Sun 16 Feb 2003 01:21:19 PM PST


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