King's Manassa Turquoise: Field Guide to Colorado's Green Classic

King's Manassa turquoise comes from prehistoric deposits on Pinon Mountain in Conejos County, southern Colorado. The mine is named for the I. P. King family, who migrated from Texas to the Manassa Valley in search of gold and found turquoise instead — a family operation whose green-leaning stone fed the early Indian jewelry trade.

Mateo's Field Notes

Israel Pervoise King settled at Manassa, opened a blacksmith shop, and kept prospecting for gold. He never found much — but he kept finding pretty blue and green rocks, which sat on the fireplace mantle of the family inn until, in the early 1900s, a traveling salesman recognized what they were. A photograph survives of King inside the Manassa tunnel entrance before 1910. The surrounding area has carried claims since the 1890s, including the Nellie Bly, Mexico, Arkansas, Last Chance, Lajara, and Sunset. (LOWRY ~lines 6889–6900, 6966–6970, 11664–11677)

The record holds a genuine date conflict worth stating plainly: Rosnek and Stacey say "a rockhound named King in 1912 discovered a lode of the Sky Stone," while the Lowrys document area claims from the 1890s and King's tunnel before 1910. Both agree on what followed — Manassa "produced well during World War II days" and the town, a Mormon settlement otherwise famous as the hometown of Jack Dempsey, the "Manassa Mauler," became a center for stonecutters. (ROSNEK ~lines 42246–42257; LOWRY ~lines 11664–11677)

This was a family economy in the fullest sense. During the Depression the Lem Edgar family came from Texas to pick peas and beans in the Manassa Valley; in late 1929 Travis Edgar married Vivian King, and went to work turquoise alongside his brothers-in-law. The King, Edgar, Gibson, and Smith families were all related to each other through turquoise — by blood and by trade — and Bill King took over the Manassa mining in 1960. A 1916 federal survey cited by Chambless and Ryan described the mine near Manassa as owned by C.G. King, worked for the previous 10 or 12 years, and made "an interesting observation that the turquoise mined was largely sold or traded to Indians." (LOWRY ~lines 6947–6976, 7051–7062; CHAMBLESS ~lines 10284–10296)

Collector's Handbook: How to Recognize King's Manassa Turquoise

Color tells: Manassa is one of the mines the Lowrys name for high-grade blues and greens, and one of the sources — with Blue Gem — of the green turquoise common in early-twentieth-century Indian jewelry often mislabeled Cerrillos. (LOWRY ~lines 4610–4621, 11606–11613)
Imitation caution: Chinese Ma'anshan turquoise "produces many colors of green similar to the American mines of Manassa and Royston" — green color alone proves nothing. (LOWRY ~lines 7271–7275)
Where the stone went: The 1916 record that Manassa turquoise was "largely sold or traded to Indians" makes it a strong candidate source for early Navajo and Pueblo-set green stones. (CHAMBLESS ~lines 10287–10296)
Mine status: Historic family operation; Manassa also hosts the Burnham or Godber mine, so district labels vary. (ROSNEK ~lines 42255–42257)

References

Lowry, Joe Dan, and Joe P. Lowry. Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone. Gibbs Smith, 2010. ~lines 4610–4621, 6889–6976, 7051–7062, 7271–7275, 11664–11677.
Chambless, Philip, and Mike Ryan II. Turquoise in America, Part One: The Great American Turquoise Rush 1890–1910. Callais Press, 2021. ~lines 10284–10296.
Rosnek, Carl, and Joseph Stacey. Skystone and Silver: The Collector's Book of Southwest Indian Jewelry. Prentice-Hall, 1976. ~lines 42246–42257.

Related Entries

Colorado's other prehistoric source is Villa Grove. The green-stone identification problem starts at Cerrillos; the Edgar family thread continues at Stormy Mountain. Green vs. blue value: turquoise color and grading.

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