Maine Mineral & Gem Museum
Space rocks, Maine mineralogy, and western Maine's mineral and gem mining legacy converge at this impressive interactive 15,000-square-foot museum—unexpected for a town Bethel’s size. Surrounding the handsome structure that joined two Main Street buildings is a garden with large rocks, some resembling modern sculpture and all placarded with interesting facts about their origins, etc. Opened in 2019, the two-story museum has 19 exhibits in four galleries. Kids love the simulated mining blast, part of an exhibit on gem discoveries and mica and feldspar mining in the Bethel area. The museum's collection includes 37,940 mineral specimens, many Maine-mined. A replica of a Maine mineral store, once a tourist hot spot, showcases prized specimens. In the Hall of Gems (and the gift shop!), jewelry featuring Maine's famed pink and watermelon tourmaline, and other gems bedazzles. The Space Rocks gallery darkens every half hour for a 3D film that beams about as if a meteorite shower has blown up the walls, revealing Bethel. Strikingly displayed is a famed meteorite collection: the museum has the world's "largest known" pieces of the moon and Mars and more lunar meteorites than other museums combined. Visitors can hold a space rock, and scientists relate interesting facts via life-size videos as though they were in the room. Off the gift shop, the free Discovery Gallery has changing exhibits and drawers with minerals, rocks, and fossils. Check the website for events like the summertime outdoor sluice.
