Strickland Quarry is now Quarry Ridge Golf Course in Portland, Connecticut. The sweeping vistas and beauty remain the same from the top of the ridge as they once were from the top of the tailings pile from the quarry leavings.
Just inside the building that houses the course's restaurant, banquet room and pro shop is a small exhibit. The showcase display holds a range of minerals specimens that once came from inside the quarry on site (only outcroppings remain; collecting is no longer possible). Credit for the collection appears in the form of a plaque - "Minerals and research by Richard Schooner, faceting by Andrew B. Sloan."
Vintage photographs offer a glimpse into the operations on site (imagine climbing that ladder depicted in the image above).
"The Strickland quarry at Collins Hill, Portland, is the most productive, and the best known. Mr. F. E. Strickland, the owner, is an expert on the minerals of his quarry, and saves carefully any unusual crystals. The quarry was opened as early as 1840. There is a pitcher, bearing in gilt the name of Strickland, now preserved in Wesleyan Museum, which was made from feldspar taken from the quarry at that early date . . . It is the only quarry in this part of Connecticut which has yielded asbestiform tourmaline, purple apatite . . . aquamarine beryl, garnet . . . " - from The American Mineralogist, volume 7, 1922, written by W. G. Foye of Wesleyan University.
One of the best places today to see Connecticut minerals is the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven. The collection there does include native rock and inclusions from what was once Strickland's quarry. For more about pegmatites and how they are formed see the Mineralogical Society of America site.
John Lucas Jr. is the PGA professional at Quarry Ridge, which offers panoramic views along the 18 holes of its well-groomed public golf course.
