Early Tales From TUCSON

REVISITING ODD, FUNNY, AND UNBELIEVABLE EARLY SHOW HISTORY

- Bob Jones

The early days of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™ are full of history and are certainly the source of lots of odd and unusual tales.

I’ve been involved in the show for 60 of those years and watched it develop. I seriously doubt the rockhounds who founded the Show had any idea they were giving birth to one of the great mineral events of the world. The setting, the warm winter desert in a mineral-rich state and bordering, even more, mineral-rich Mexico has resulted in a truly amazing world-renowned three-week event.

The first Tucson Gem and Mineral Show™ was held in a school cafeteria with a handful of local dealers who paid a few dollars for a table on which to display their minerals. Fast forward more than 60 years, and today the City of Tucson is financially benefiting from about 50 different gem, mineral, and fossil shows spread out over three weeks. The period from late January to mid-February is the single most lucrative financial event time for Tucson. Few would argue that the Tucson Show has become the most famous gem and mineral event in the world.

I doubt the tens of thousands of visiting collectors and countless hardworking dealers who depend on the Show for much of their annual income, realize the Tucson event started at the suggestion of a Denver mineral dealer named Bob Roots. After finishing a gem show in Phoenix, Roots headed to Tucson to buy minerals from wholesale dealers and to also visit friends who were members of the Tucson Gem & Mineral Society (TGMS). He felt Tucson was perfectly positioned to have a mineral show, and he encouraged his Tucson friends to give it a try. They did, and Tucson’s world-famous mineral event was born.