Sterling Hill Mining Museum: Ogdensburg NJ Tour Guide for 2026

The Sterling Hill Mining Museum at 30 Plant Street in Ogdensburg, NJ lets visitors walk into a real former zinc mine on a guided tour that also covers two museums. From September 8, 2026 through June 26, 2027, public tours run on weekends only, at 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, with tickets sold on site and no reservations needed.

Our team pulled everything below from the museum’s own website: the history, what the tour includes, admission, mineral collecting, sluicing and what to bring.

Sterling Hill Mining Museum at a Glance

• Address: 30 Plant Street, Ogdensburg, NJ 07439
• Phone: 973-209-7212
• Email: info@shmmuseum.org
• Grounds: open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily for the gift shop, collecting and sluicing
• Public tours through June 26, 2027: Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m.
• Extra 2026 dates: 1 p.m. tours on November 5 and 6, while schools are closed for the teachers convention
• Tour length: about two hours
• Temperature in the mine: 56 degrees

A Short History of the Mine

According to the museum’s history of the mine, early settlers could not get iron or copper out of the area’s ore, and rock sent to Wales for smelting in 1772 confirmed it. The minerals were eventually identified as rich in zinc. Several small companies began mining in 1836, and the New Jersey Zinc Company consolidated the properties in 1897.

The underground mine reached a depth of 2,675 feet and grew to 35 miles of tunnels before it closed in 1986, when rising production costs and falling zinc prices ended mining. In 1989, brothers Richard and Robert Hauck bought the property at auction to turn it into a museum. It opened in the early 1990s and later became a nonprofit educational foundation. The mine is now flooded, and only the upper level, above the water table, is open to the public.

What the Mine Tour Includes

The museum’s tour page says public tours last roughly two hours and cover three stops. There are no unguided tours, so you need to be on a tour to enter the mine or either museum.

• Zobel Hall Museum (about 30 minutes): the old miners’ change house, now holding more than 12,000 items, per the Zobel Hall page. Highlights include the Oreck Mineral Gallery, a fluorescent mineral room, a 10 foot interactive Periodic Table with 112 element samples, plus mining equipment, meteorites, fossils and Thomas Edison inventions.
• The mine (about an hour): a guided walk through the underground workings, including the Rainbow Tunnel, which the museum says now has new, improved lighting.
• Warren Museum of Fluorescence (about 30 minutes): four rooms of the 1916 mill building with more than 700 fluorescent minerals and objects, per the Warren Museum page.

Admission

Public tour prices from the tour page:

• Adults (13 and up): $17
• Seniors (65 and up): $16
• Children (4 to 12): $15
• Children under 4: $5

Tickets are not sold online. The museum asks visitors to arrive between 12:30 and 12:45 p.m. to buy tickets for the 1 p.m. tour. Private group tours need at least 15 paying guests and must be booked by phone at least two weeks ahead.

Mineral Collecting on the Mine Run Dump

Serious rock hounds can dig through the Mine Run Dump, which has an International pile with minerals from around the world and a Local pile of high grade zinc ore from Sterling Hill itself. Details from the mineral collecting page:

• Collectors must be at least 18. The museum suggests sluicing for kids instead.
• Admission is $5 per person, plus $3 per pound of rock, with a 5 pound minimum.
• Closed toe shoes are required, and hammers are not allowed.
• Bring your own bags or buckets.
• A shed on the dump has a shortwave ultraviolet light for checking your finds.
• The dump is listed as open daily from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., weather permitting.

Sluicing for Kids

Sluicing works like panning for gold: you buy a bag of sand and wash it in the water trough to reveal minerals, crystals or fossils, which takes about 10 to 15 minutes. The sluicing page lists Emerald and Earth Explorer bags at $10, Crystal Quest and Motherlode at $25, and Megastrike at $50, with sluicing open daily April through October.

Know Before You Go

• Bring a layer. It is 56 degrees in the mine, and the museum recommends a light jacket or sweatshirt.
• Wear sturdy shoes. Closed toe shoes are required on the collecting dump, and our team recommends them for the mine walk too.
• Arrive by 12:30 p.m. Tickets for the 1 p.m. tour are sold on site.
• Plan for about two hours for the tour, plus time for collecting or the gift shop.

Make It a Minerals Day in Sussex County

Ogdensburg’s neighbor Franklin is home to the Franklin Mineral Museum, and our guide to things to do in Franklin NJ covers it along with the rest of town. Sterling Hill also hosts a fall mineral show, which we covered in our Sterling Hill Fall Mineral Festival guide.

Featured photo: the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg. Photo by Zeete via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.