Natural Villa Grove Turquoise from Colorado has been described by many as some of the finest Turquoise in the world. This Colorado Turquoise mine mainly produced sky blue Turquoise that was matrix free. The mine was re-known for it's small sky blue or gemologically perfect "Turquoise Blue" nuggets. This Turquoise can be such a shocking "Robin's Egg" to baby blue that it looks to be glowing. Most of these nuggets were small about the size of a dime or smaller, many being the size of a pinto bean. This was greatTurquoise for Navajo Cluster Jewelry, Zuni Needle Point and Petite Point Jewelry, as well as Santo Domingo Bead necklaces. On a rare occasion a larger nugget would be found and also some vein materail. Some spiderweb Turquoise was found, but this was in small supply and is considered less then the top 10% of the material from the mine. Another rare occurance at the mine was green Turquoise. Most of the Turquoise was matrix free. The host rock at Villa Grove is mostly a gray rock with some brown to yellow limonite. Most of the matrix in Villa Grove Turquoise is either black or brownish yellow and white. Today Villa Grove Turquoise is pretty darn hard to come by and is often immitated.

The Villa Grove mine, once known as the Hall mine, is located northwest of the town of Villa Grove in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Villa Grove was one of the Colorado mines that showed signs of being worked by the Ancient Native American peoples. It was rediscovered sometime in the 1890’s and mined for copper with major Turquoiseoperations beginning in the early 1900’s. These prehistoric deposits are located along a stretch of low-lying hills (10,000 feet) in between scattered trees about seven miles northwest of Villa Grove, Colorado. First mentioned in 1893, it is currently not actively mined. The largest dig site in the area is difficult to mine because it fills with water from a nearby spring. This prehistoric area’s largest production occurred during the 1930s through the 1950s when it was owned by Bob Hall (Hall Turquoise Mine), Menalis Winfield, George Musik and others.A bright blue Turquoise was mined both clear and also with a fine spider web which sometimes resembled the finest Lone Mountain Turquoisefrom Nevada. In fact the Villa Grove mine was owned in 1965 by Menalis Winfield, who had also owned the Lone Mountain mine in Nevada. Although very rare, Turquoise from this area can still appear in today’s market.

The Villa Grove Turquoise mine (sec. 26, T. 47 N., R. 8 E.; pl. 1) is located in the intrusive Turquessa gabbro in the Rawley Andesite of the Bonanza volcanic complex; it was originally mined for copper as far back as the 1890s. J.S. Randall recognized Turquoise minerals in 1893; however, the Villa Grove Mine was not developed for turquoise until 1936. The deposit was developed by a pit, open cuts, and underground drifts (Eckel, 1997). Pearl (1941) described the Turquoise as veins and nodules filling openings in felsite porphyry. Later workers (Mayhew, 1969) described the Turquoise as a fracture filling in the Turquessa gabbro. The Turquessa gabbro visible at the mine in 2004 had a porphyritic texture and was strongly altered. The mine produced high-quality Turquoise, essentially free from veining and having a sky-blue color (fig. 52). Peak production was in the 1940s, when Turquoise sold for $15 to $45 a pound. Voynick (1994, p. 289) mentioned that the value of the production through the1950s was $80,000. The Villa Grove Turquoise mine has been closed until recently when it was purchased by Randy Christensen. Christensen has yet to acheive a sustainable ore to put the mine back into production.