One of the best authenticated of these stories was of the Lost Soldier Mine. The story has had little embellishment and, in part, may be true. He packed his saddlebags with approximately $7,000 worth of gold and continued on to Los Angeles. #scot, Lynx Lake Mineral Withdrawal Area & Gold Panning Trail, Arizona Association of Gold Prospectors (AAGP), Phoenix/Scottsdale City Expert for HomeandAbroad.com, Want to read more travel articles from MDN? But when his son, who worked in Mexico, found a map that might lead to an Arizona gold mine, Ruth couldn't resist. But modern-day treasure hunters do exist. The story goes something like this: Waltz and/or Weiser locate a rich gold mine in the. The richest always was somewhere out in the desert, beyond water, or within almost inaccessible mountains, where wild Indians guarded the golden secret handed down to them by their forefathers. Only empty buildings, cemeteries, and broken-down stamp mills remain to tell their story, along with brief notes in the history books documenting their existence. (Jameson, 2009). December 09, 2019 Waltz also makes a deathbed confession to a Julia Thomas, and even draws a crude map of the mine. 8248 Lost Mine Rd. In one story, a miner is crossing the desert between Yuma and Warner's Ranch, when he climbs up one of three buttes to get a better sense of his location. As was common in the West, the first discoveries of gold were placer deposits, followed by lode deposits found near Apache Junction, Big Bug, Bullhead City, Chloride, Globe, Oatman, Pearce, Quartzsite, Salome and Tombstone, which yielded the lions share of the states early gold supply. Prominent among the lost mines stories of Northern Arizona was that of the Adams Diggings. Most indefinite are the details, and the various locations indicated lie anywhere from the Colorado River through to Globe. Find a club in your city: Goldminers HQ, Desert Gold Diggersclubs with gold claims in Arizona, Legends of America Treasure Clubs, Gold Mining Tours & Instruction Water was found just in time to save their lives, for Wormley already had become delirious. The story was widely copied, and from eastern points, so many inquiries came that the Herald editor had to have a little slip printed to be sent back in reply. Are Electric Highways the Way of the Future? There are men who have claimed to have found Pegleg's lost Mine. He was believed to be part of Pauline Weavers original exploration party that traveled along the Hassayampa River. Click here. In 1932, campers found a note from him bobbing in Arizona's Salt River. Some writers have indicated that there actually was a Miguel Peralta whose family operated a gold mine but this was in the 1860s, near Valenciana in California. Where to Find Gold in the Desert by James Klein, Gem Guides, 1994. However, the story and possibility of stumbling across immense wealth has enticed hundreds of people to attempt searching for the gold mine and a fair number of those lives have ended in death. But the mine remains shrouded in mystery, so much so that it might not exist at all. According to Storm, the chunk of quartz was half the size of a man's head, with . But the mine remains shrouded in mystery, so much so that it might not exist at all. But will big risks lead to an even bigger pay out? For more than a century, adventurous souls have sought the Lost Dutchman Mine, and since 1891, more than a hundred people have claimed to find it. ), The Desert Environment When Ashleys dad took a break to go into Phoenix on business, the young man decided to investigate a rumored lead deposit nearby. But with the dollars decline in recent years, gold mining has experienced a sudden resurgence: From the Discovery Channels show, Gold Rush Alaska, where six men risked it all to strike it rich mining the Alaskan wilderness to a distinct rise in gold claims filed in Arizona. Monica is a staff writer for Only In Your State, photo editor for The Mesa Legend, and previously a staff writer for The Navajo Post. 8356 Lost Mine Rd. In 1977, Granger noted that the Lost Dutchman story was printed at least 6 times more often than the story of Captain Kidds lost treasure or the story of the Lost Pegleg Mine in California. Thank you! When the mines closed, the towns died, and their remains have become ghost towns and tourist attractions. Almost every prospector, whether professional or tenderfoot, had his own pet lost mine that he looked for. Your email address will not be published. Copyright 2007-2023 & BIG THINK, BIG THINK PLUS, SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by Freethink Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Many prospectors and historians wonder why he did not go back to the desert and search for the butte where he discovered the gold. If I do believe, how can I find gold in the desert and where do I begin searching? Your email address will not be published. Numbers of others have tried to find the Ni**er Ben diggings, but they have not been discovered as yet. They are massacred by the Apache in 1850. Waltz fell ill and died in 1891, but not before revealing the location of an alleged gold mine to Julia Thomas, the neighbour who cared for him. It is possible that the mountain was the Harqua Hala. During the 1840s, the Peralta family of northern Mexico supposedly developed rich gold mine(s) in the Superstition Mountains. But Ruth did indeed find the Lost Dutchman, according to a message in a bottle. Arizona Gold Mining Adventure, Phoenix. The gun had been there so long that even the hammer and trigger had rusted away. The gold trail led through New Mexico, Tucson, and Yuma to California. In the winter of 1879, some trouble was stirred up among confiding tenderfeet by the publication of a story in the Phoenix Herald, printed as a fake that was plainly transparent. Waltz fell ill and died in 1891, but not before revealing the location of an alleged gold mine to Julia Thomas, the neighbour who cared for him. Before we get into those, here are some genuine facts about the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine: There really was a Lost Dutchman, although he wasnt Dutch. From Tucson and Sonora, they were joined by two large companies of Mexicans. The Lost Gold of the Tumacacori Judge Barnes and the Mysterious Spanish Priest By Gregory McNamee From the time Europeans first arrived in what is now Arizona, the region's lore has been full of tales of lost gold mines and forgotten treasures, of "Apache gold and Yaqui silver," in folklorist J. Frank Dobie's words. Apache Trail Tours, Apache Junction: Two-hour jeep tour to the foothills of the Superstition Mountains with guided instruction on gold panning and how to tell the difference between real and fools gold. Panning equipment provided. He argued that each of these three legends contains some truth, but have become badly distorted through time. Mining towns such as Tumco, Bodie, Oatman and Randsberg were once booming with growth due to the mining operations which provided jobs and drew gold seekers from all over the country. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); DesertUSA Newsletter -- We send articles on hiking, camping and places to explore, as well as animals, wildflower reports, plant information and much more. But the prospector, with only his burro for companionship, was wont to dream strange dreams and, eventually, to transmute them into what he considered reality. The mines involved usually contain a high-value commodity such as gold, silver or diamonds. Offers gold prospecting private instruction, day trips & vacationsin the Weaver Mountains from Sept-June. When his father later examined the specimen, he noticed the underside of the quartz was covered with fine wire gold and pinhead nuggets. Stars Jesse Feldman Josh Feldman Clark Moore See production, box office & company info Add to Watchlist After his leg was amputated, his friends fashioned him a wooden leg, thus earning him the name Pegleg. The best times to visit this trail are September through May. Parker Schnabel and his friends pay tribute to the legends before them and attempt the Klondike Trail of 1897. To this day, both lost mines are actively sought after by old time prospectors and treasure hunters. The stories of lost gold mines still lure prospectors, even today. Click here to read the original article. He made frequent trips into the desert whenever he needed money, always returning with black gold nuggets. On the slip was the word take. The editor feared to even remain silent, for most of the letters told of the organization in eastern villages of parties of heavily-armed men to get the gold dust or die in the attempt, and there might have been dire consequences on the head of the imaginative journalist had Phoenix been reached by even one of the desperate rural eastern expeditions. While at the camp, she told the workers about the gold nuggets she found and left them with one of the nuggets before she continued on her way. Maricopa County. Wormley reached the river, almost demented from his sufferings, and was unable to guide a party back into the desert. Ed Schieffelin, who discovered the Tombstone mines, would later search diligently for the lost mine, but if he found it, he never told. (Waltz definitely existed, and was definitely German, but his ore is not as well documented.) Misinformation and rumors about the mine grew so ubiquitous that in 1895, they made it into the San Francisco Chronicle. 8302 Lost Mine Rd. Lost Mines & Buried Treasure of the Southwest by Thomas Penfield, Adventures Unlimited Press, 2004. Men struck out on his trail and soon found Flannigan, who would have lasted only a few hours longer. Already in the 16th century, Spanish Conquistadors roamed the area, looking for the precious metal. The assumption that he was murdered by Apache Indians appears to have been sustained by a prospectors discovery near the Vulture Mine in the summer of 1895 of the barrel of an old muzzle-loading shotgun, and by it, a home-made mesquite gun stock. Jesse Capen was obsessed with the legend of the lost gold, despite the lack of hard historical evidence. Weekly, he fields questions from visitors who want to know where the gold is. Through the years, truth and fiction about this mine have been irrevokably mixed up, producing 62 varieties of the legend. Since there is more than one version of the story, there are many contradicting facts. On one occasion, Alchisay, a Chiricahua Apache scout, is known to have pawned a nugget worth $500 for $10 worth of supplies, and later to have redeemed the gold, of which he seemed to know the full value. Granger distinguished three main elements to the story, with the most complete version of the story incorporating all three legends. The differences are evident in the variance of descriptive landmarks, dates, and historical information. It's near a 1,000-foot-tall rock tower! The worlds longest cave system is a gargantuan labyrinth of 420 miles of twists and turns and nooks and crannies, with limestone travertine stalactites dripping from the ceilings. Maricopa County is also popular for prospecting because much of the gold here is found in sizable pieces that can be found with metal detectors . 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