Founded in 1997 in Hendersonville, North Carolina, this nonprofit, volunteer-run museum in the city’s historic district focuses on minerals, geology, paleontology, and the lapidary arts. Operated by the Henderson County Gem and Mineral Society, it serves especially as an educational resource for children and also introduces adults to Appalachian geology. Its broad collection includes local and worldwide specimens, North Carolina minerals, Henderson Augen Gneiss, pieces of the 1901 Hendersonville iron-nickel meteorite, geodes, fluorescent minerals, replica Hope Diamonds, Native American artifacts, fossils, and petrified wood. Regular geode-cracking demonstrations help connect western North Carolina’s geology to wider natural history and stoneworking traditions.