This story was originally published in the 2024 edition of Discovery magazine, the College of Science's publication. This edition of Discovery celebrated the 20th anniversary of the College of Science.
At the north end of the University Quad stands the Mackay Mines building, and inside is the W. M. Keck Earth Sciences and Mineral Engineering Museum, with its treasure troves of gems, spectacular silver pieces and a wealth of knowledge.
A historic building documents Nevada's history
The Keck Museum’s history is intricately tied to the history of the Mackay family and the University itself, though the name of the museum has changed from its original name. The museum has long been located in the Mackay Mines building, named for John W. Mackay, the silver baron who made it rich on the Virginia City Comstock Lode. Clarence Mackay (John Mackay’s son), and Marie Louise Mackay (John Mackay’s wife and Clarence’s mother), gave large sums of money to the University after John’s passing to support mining education in the area. Clarence Mackay insisted that the Mackay School of Mines have a museum.
The University’s mining and geology departments had already collected specimens, so the museum’s collection extends back to the founding of the University in 1874. There are labels in the collection that still read “Nevada State University” (the University’s name until 1906). A large collection of every mineral mined and found in Nevada at the time from the Nevada State Mineral Exhibition, held in Goldfield in 1908, was moved to the museum after the exhibition. When the museum was formally founded in 1908, it was known as the “University of Nevada Museum” and served as a museum for the entire University.
“While the Nevada Historical Society was founded four years before us, we were the one of the first purposely built museums in the state of Nevada and one of the first collecting institutions,” Garrett Barmore, Mackay School of Mines endowed curator and museum manager, said. “And because of that, we have a lot of Nevada history that's kind of outside of our modern mission. We have a many objects from Nevada’s exhibits at various world's fairs, which includes our big map of Nevada that was made in 1915 for the Pan Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco.”
For the first two decades the museum mostly collected rocks and minerals. In 1926, the building was remodeled by famous architect Frederic J. DeLongchamps, and paleontology and mining history were added to the rocks and minerals collection, rounding out to three collection areas. In the 1930s, the museum was renamed to the Mackay School of Mines Museum as other state museums began to crop up. During the Great Depression, the museum was hit with budget cuts and the director and preparatory positions were lost. For the next 60 years, the museum was generally run by a professor as part of their role at the University.
The 1990s marked a period of change for the museum. Under the leadership of Tom Lugaski, the museum was professionalized and greater emphasis was placed on the public’s access to the museum.
“While the museum has always been public-facing, and had a strong community focus, in the 1990s is when we really began to see the modern idea of museum education come into the Keck,” Barmore said.
The Mackay Mines building was condemned in the 1970s, but a public campaign was brought forth to save the building. In “Mackay School of Mines: Reminiscences on the Growth of a College,” written in 1975, late geology professor Edward Richard Larson remarked. “Unfortunately, at this time the Mackay School of Mines Building, weakened by repeated earthquake over the years, is slated for removal.”
However, a public campaign to save the building was launched, and the building underwent some extreme renovations. The building itself was placed on jacks and the foundation was repoured and placed on Teflon shoes to allow it to sway in the case of an earthquake. This project was supported by several individuals and mining companies which all matched the original $2 million gift made to pay for the renovations, courtesy of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The Keck Foundation was established in 1954 by the founder of Superior Oil Company, William Myron Keck, and supported the project because of Keck’s interest in supporting “outstanding teaching and research in the earth sciences in which the Mackay School of Mines is a national leader.” This brought the latest name change to the museum: the W. M. Keck Earth Science and Mineral Engineering Museum.
The Keck today
“I started my position here in 2013 and since 2017, I am the first dedicated full-time employee of the museum since 1936,” Barmore said.
Barmore has been critical to the development of the museum as a public-facing museum and as a research facility.
“We have over 100,000 objects in the collection,” Barmore said. “We have a special focus on Nevada, but we have objects from all over the world, and while we get thousands of K - 12 students through a year, we also support research happening here at the Mackay School and other institutions.”
Some of the objects in the collection include 60 pieces of the Mackay Silver Collection.
"The Keck Museum not only preserves Nevada history, it's also a part of Nevada history, so I really enjoy being part of the University and being part of the College of Science."
“It's a really important collection because not only does it represent Nevada mining and Nevada history, it also tells the complete story of the beginning of silver production to the end of silver manufacturing,” Barmore said.
Approximately five percent of the museum’s collections are currently on display, and Barmore said that’s pretty standard for most museums.
“The exhibits take up a lot of space and are very expensive, so we rotate things through as much as we can,” Barmore said.
That doesn’t mean the other ninety-five percent of objects are sitting in boxes in the basement.
“We do have a collections management policy that is consistent with American Alliance of Museums’ best practices, and every object that we collect that goes into our permanent collection is held to the highest standard of care that we are capable of,” Barmore said.
Collections care is expensive, Barmore said, because each object has its own unique needs to maintain its quality. Leather, paper, and even some of the rock specimens can be vulnerable to light and humidity (Barmore points out that the collections are relatively safe from humidity in the arid Reno environment). Stock certificates can only be placed in a certain type of plastic sheet to protect them, and physical objects can only be stored in a specific type of foam. Cardboard, as it turns out, is terrible to store things in. Barmore spends most of his time maintaining the collection.
“It’s a never-ending job,” he said. “Not only is it housing objects, rehousing objects, caring for objects that are coming in, but it’s also maintaining the database so we’re able to find objects, it’s numbering objects. On top of that, you have exhibit design, you have the education program, tours, you’re helping researchers, and collections work is always there.”
Because of limited space and time, and the scope of the museum’s collecting policy, Barmore is very selective about which objects he admits into the collections. The three collecting areas, rocks and minerals, paleontological specimens, and mining history are limited to Nevada.
“Nevada is a little loosely defined,” Barmore said. “It’s representational of the geology of the era and of the region.”
Barmore added he will accept almost any specimen that is relevant to active research in the Mackay School.
“The reason for that is because first and foremost, we are the museum of the Mackay School, and I would like us to better reflect that active research happening at the Mackay School,” he said.
Barmore also added that the collections policy is a matter of ethics.
“I will not collect an object that we cannot care for,” Barmore said. “It could be a space requirement, or it also could be a funding requirement if it takes a very specialized material to care for. It would be unethical for me to collect it knowing that I cannot care for it.”
Barmore said objects in the museum exhibits are generally rotated a couple of times each year, and that when he has funding to support an intern, the interns generally come from the geological sciences or museum studies programs. The interns have the opportunity to design their own exhibits.
Barmore himself is an alumnus of the University. Barmore grew up in Reno and after attending the University for his bachelor’s degree in international affairs, attended the University of Washington for graduate school. After obtaining his master’s degree, Barmore applied to museum jobs all over the country.
“I just happened to end up back here at my alma mater, and in many ways the Keck Museum is kind of a dream location for me,” Barmore said. “My thesis was about professionalizing small and rural museums. I still have a lot of family in Nevada, and so Nevada really is my home and I love Nevada history. The Keck Museum not only preserves Nevada history, it's also a part of Nevada history, so I really enjoy being part of the University and being part of the College of Science.”
Barmore shares his passion for Nevada’s geologic history with thousands of schoolchildren every year when they come through the heavy wooden doors of the Mackay Mines building.
“We have a robust tour program,” Barmore said. “The main point of all of these programs is not only to share the wonders of Earth science but is to make students feel comfortable in a museum setting, in a university setting. And that's one of the reasons why we don't charge for any of our tours.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Barmore began to offer virtual programming “visits” to classroom, and has taken the visits off Zoom, too.
The museum’s outreach goes beyond tours. Teaching kits are loaned out to K-12 educators and civic groups to provide hands-on earth science education and promote the exhibits and activities of the Keck Museum and the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology. The kits were funded by a grant from the Stout Foundation, and include “Physical properties of minerals,” “Nevada minerals, their properties and uses” and “Fluorescent minerals.”
The future of the Keck Museum
“The museum continues to grow, and we continue to receive support from the University and the College of Science, and support that the museum hasn't seen in close to 100 years,” Barmore said. “I feel that we are entering a new era for the museum.”
Barmore is looking for opportunities to expand his in-person visits with rural Nevada schools, in locations where much of Nevada’s history continues to this day.
“I have been talking with some rural schools about setting up a time where I might actually drive out to a community and spend a week out there and working with as many schools as I can,” Barmore said.
The museum has also grown physically, both in space and in collections.
“In the last ten years, we have received a generous donation from Seymour Schulich and a large collection of stock certificates, and that allowed us to open up a new document lab, which not only has open storage exhibits for the general public that are open during our normal hours, but also gives us a space to set up researchers,” Barmore said.
Part of that funding allowed for the purchase of an augmented reality document display case, making the Keck Museum the first museum in the nation with that technology.
“We've also opened up the new gallery downstairs that is highlighting active research at the Mackay School and College of Science, and we have also acquired some new objects, including a new piece of the Mackay silver,” Barmore said. “We've also really begun to grow our K - 12 program and to take a more active role of being part of the museum community here on campus, specifically with the two other College of Science museums, Fleischmann Planetarium and the Museum of Natural History.”
