Rockhounds and Legends: Encounters with Chris Christensen

By Steven Wade Veatch

During nearly six decades of membership in the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society (CSMS), I’ve watched the club’s history unfold through the hands, eyes, and stories of its members. Many mentors and friends are no longer here—people whose voices once filled meeting halls and whose laughter was heard on field trips. I especially miss Ray Berry, Jerry Suchan, and Jack Thompson, whose wisdom shaped my rockhounding adventures, and my companions Roger Pittman and John Harrington, with whom I shared countless treks into Colorado’s high country in search of mineral and fossil treasures. Among them all, one mentor stands out in my memory like a flawless topaz crystal catching light—Chris Christensen.

Figure 1. Chris Christensen is showing a student some finer points of automobile engine repair. From the 1966 Palmer High School Yearbook.

Chris was an active member of the CSMS for many years. I saw him at every meeting I attended. He served in many capacities: vice president, then president; he taught lapidary arts, mineral identification, and crystallography to club members. He also enjoyed showing people microminerals through a microscope. Chris told new members of the group that you can collect the most beautiful specimens in the world and keep them in a small box or cabinet.

Chris taught auto-shop classes in the industrial arts program at Palmer High School. He also taught lapidary art at the high school as part of an adult continuing education program for the City of Colorado Springs. For several years, Chris’s evening lapidary class at the high school became my Tuesday night ritual. It wasn’t just a hobby—it was my workshop, my laboratory, and my chance to work alongside a master. The class offered access to Palmer High’s exceptional lapidary equipment—trim saws, slab saws, grinders, polishers—tools far beyond what I could own at home. Each semester, I re-enrolled, eager to keep learning from Chris and to keep grinding rocks on those machines.

Eventually, my persistence caught the attention of the continuing education office. After my third or fourth consecutive registration, the calls began: “Are you sure this is the right class for you?” The implication was that I might be lost, confused, or stuck. Chris and I shared a quiet laugh about it—he understood perfectly. I wasn’t repeating the class because I’d forgotten what I’d learned; I was there because every session brought new skills, fresh projects, and time in the company of a gifted teacher.

I was fortunate to visit Chris at his home on the corner of Cascade and Uintah in Colorado Springs. His living room was a repository of the Earth's artistry, revealed in rocks and minerals. Imposing cabinets, resembling ancient reliquaries, lined the walls and exhibited specimens from the Pikes Peak region. Topaz crystals pulsed with a light that seemed to transcend the ordinary, while smoky quartz stood in dark, silent contemplation. Amazonite blushed blue. The very air hummed with the echoes of geological ages, a symphony of color and texture that spoke of fire, heat, pressure, and time. His collections displayed nature’s enduring power and beauty, contained within a space that felt both intimate and vast. It was here that Chris hosted the CSMS micromount group and served his famous stew for them to enjoy.

Figure 2. The author used AI tools to recreate his long-ago memory of Chris Christensen's home display of rocks and minerals.

While I visited Chris at his home, he counseled me to avoid dividing the rock club’s youth group, the Pebble Pups, by age. Chris envisioned a tapestry of Pebble Pups woven with the vibrant threads of kids of all ages. He talked about the delicate alchemy of a shared space, where younger pups would look up to the older ones for guidance and support with their new hobby. The older pups, entrusted with this subtle mantle of responsibility, would discover a newfound sense of purpose and find value in mentoring the younger ones and helping with the Pebble Pup class sessions. This model of the Pebble Pup program continues to this day. 

Chris’s kindness is what I remember most vividly. A perfect example of his thoughtful nature occurred at the Calumet mine. He once carried his mother-in-law all the way up the steep tailings dump and gently set her down at the mine's edge. He then made sure she was comfortable, spreading out a blanket for her to sit on and setting up an umbrella to provide shade. He would begin looking for mineral specimens to take home only after she was completely settled (Don Collins, pers. comm).

Chris had a real passion for trading specimens. I remember a story about the time he traded a bag of diamond dirt—material from one of the diamond pipes on the Colorado-Wyoming border—for two spectacular, palm-sized smithsonite specimens from New Mexico’s storied Kelly Mine. The smithsonite specimens from the Kelly Mine so thoroughly intrigued Chris that he traveled to the mine and explored the old workings himself. He made many trips there, climbing up and down ladders and prospecting various levels of the mine. He seemed to have a knack for always finding museum-grade specimens.

Figure 3. Smithsonite, Kelly Mine, Magdalena District, NM. 9.5 cm tall. New Mexico Mineral Museum specimen (NMBGMR#16785). Jeff Scovil photo.

But fortune is a fickle partner underground. During one expedition, he climbed up a ladder covered by dust and weakened by age. The ladder failed unexpectedly with an audible snap resounding in the darkness. He sustained bruises and, though unsettled by the incident, narrowly avoided serious injury. That narrow escape marked the end of his Kelly Mine adventures. From then on, the smithsonite he’d once traded for was not just a prized specimen—it was a reminder of how close his passion had come to claiming his life (Don Collins, pers. comm).

For several years, Chris made regular collecting trips to Chihuahua, Mexico. He would gather a truckload of denim jeans and take them with him to trade with the local Mexican miners. In return, he would fill the back of his camper with beer flats full of gleaming mineral specimens. His most successful trades often resulted in him getting stunning silver specimens.

Chris passed away on February 7, 1995. The CSMS mourned one of its luminaries, and I lost a friend and mentor. My membership in the CSMS has yielded unexpected relationships rooted in a shared fascination with rocks, minerals, and fossils. Over the years, the rockhounding community in the Pikes Peak region has changed. The experienced members, the mentors who taught valuable techniques and shared their hard-earned knowledge of where to find treasures like amazonite, eventually passed on. Books and online videos can offer information, but they cannot replicate the spark in a mentor’s eye, the encouraging nod over a grinding wheel, or the shared triumph of revealing a perfect crystal dug out of a pocket.

Yet the CSMS continues to thrive. Each new field season and mineral show brings fresh faces eager to learn. In time, they will become the next generation’s guides, carrying forward the traditions and skills passed to them.

I still picture Chris's living room: rock cabinets line the walls, topaz glowing like sunlight, smoky quartz watching over amazonite. I hear the trim saws from Tuesday nights at Palmer High School—feel the cool water spray, smell the damp grit, and recall Chris’s quiet advice. His minerals held the Earth’s memory; his guidance, like a polished stone, still shines when I make cabochons today. Chris's rockhounding spirit endures brightly, and it’s my honor to pass his story on to you today.