Rock hounds have been working this hill for over 150 years, since the first gem-quality tourmaline came out of it.
Mount Apatite Park covers 325 wooded acres in the western part of Auburn, Maine, at 64 Mount Apatite Road. It is a municipal park, which is an unusual thing for a mineral locality to be, and it offers a range of recreation not often found in a city park, including about four miles of trails.
The mineral history is the reason the hill has a name. Since those first tourmaline finds the area has seen a great deal of mineral exploration, both commercial and amateur, and today amateurs may still search the mine tailings here for apatite, tourmaline and quartz specimens. The city is explicit that special rules apply to that, so find out what they are before you start rather than after.
On which point, the Maine Geological Survey has a warning that applies well beyond this one hill and is worth taking seriously. The Survey has withdrawn the online edition of its Collector's Guide to Maine Minerals, and it has stopped offering maps and descriptions of collecting sites as downloadable files, because the landowner and access information in them is out of date and difficult to keep current.
The older editions are still in circulation, in print and as PDFs, and that is precisely the problem. The Survey states that the site access information in those editions is out of date and that access should not be presumed to be allowed. A guidebook is not permission, and a twenty-year-old guidebook is not even a reliable description of who owns the ground.
Its advice on what to do instead is practical. Collectors who want access to Maine mineral localities should contact one of the Maine mineral clubs or the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum, both of which will know the current situation. That is the difference between turning up hopefully and turning up welcome.
In the area known as the mines you may work the exposed material with HAND TOOLS ONLY, to a depth of two feet, taking reasonable amounts for personal use.
Tourmaline, apatite
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
