Featuring The Amethyst, a ten-foot tall Amethyst tower, the third largest on public display at a museum in the world, the Amethyst Gallery of Minerals will captivate you with incredible specimens, most taken from the museum's permanent collection.

In 1965, some of the first donations to our predecessor, Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, were minerals. These formed the foundation of our natural history collection. Most of the specimens on display today were gifted by Carey A. Parshall in 1999. Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, Parshall traveled the globe collecting minerals.

The museum's collection of minerals grew substantially in 1999, when a collector from Greenwich Connecticut, friends with a former director of LVM, Jack Clark, donated a substantial portion of his collection to the museum.

The Amethyst is the anchor to our mineral collection and gave us the momentum to create a new space for minerals at this museum. These beautiful stones have been in storage for many years, and it is a joy to see them out and inspiring our visitors once again.

The Amethyst Gallery of Minerals is sponsored by Visionary Society, Friends of Science and Schmitt Mineral Fund.