Exploring Old Gold Mines

I guess you might say I have a keen interest in history. You may have seen some of my articles about Quanah Parker and the Comanche Indian tribes who lived in this area before the Europeans arrived. I have enjoyed researching their history but, unfortunately the Native American tribes didn’t keep giant libraries with detailed history of their activity. Their known history was usually handed down by word of mouth from stories and story tellers. Never having visited with a Native American story teller, I never know whether their storied history is accurate history or legend, or, whether some egotistical warrior is just tooting his own horn. In my native state of Arizona, there is a rich history of Native Americans as well as a lot of history of old, abandoned mines. The mines may have been of copper, lead, zinc, silver or gold, but what interested me the most was gold mines. There was a mountain about a 45 minute drive from my home in Phoenix called Superstition Mountain, which provided both Native American history and a gold mine story to top all others. Legend held that an old Dutchman named Jacob Waltz had discovered a very rich gold mine in that mountain in the 1800s. The Apache Indian Tribe held claim to the mountain as their sacred ground, and according to the Pima Tribe, the Apaches had put a curse on the mountain and anyone trespassing on it Waltz had a partner who was killed while staying at a camp in the mountain either by Apache Indians or, as some think, by Waltz himself, after which Waltz moved back to Phoenix. But he continued to make occasional trips back to the mountain and returned with saddlebags full of gold which assayed out very high. People tried to trail him to find where his mine was but he always managed to elude them and would return to Phoenix while they were searching for him. But Waltz was caught in a flood in Phoenix and spent a couple of weeks in the forks of a Mesquite tree to avoid drowning in the flood. While there he caught pneumonia and some time later died from it. It was said a neighbor woman took care of him in his declining years and he drew a map of the location of his mine, and gave it to her. But neither her nor anyone else was ever able to find it. There have been many different tales and considerable speculation and hoards of gold seekers, as many as a million, from professional miners to weekend prospectors who launched their search for the gold but no one has proved to find the mine. In regards to the curse, the newspaper in my youth kept a list of the number of people who died mysteriously trying to find the Lost Dutchman Mine. As I remember, there were over 600 the last time I saw a number. There were a few cases of good friends who were searching for the gold together and had a falling out and one killed the other and claimed self defence. There were many who were shot with a rifle, mostly shot in the head. In some of those cases the coroner ruled it was suicide. In one such case, the miner only had a .22 calibre rifle but the death was caused from a high powered rifle. It was ruled suicide. The speculation was that many died from exposure, rattlesnake bites or from drinking bad water. There were several whose bodies were found beheaded. In some of these cases the head was found near the body, but in other cases it was found a great distance away. In one of the strangest cases, the severed head had three bullet holes in it. It, too, was ruled suicide. How could that be? One man had a rifle bullet hole in the top of his. Enough of this gore, if you wish to know more about this story you can find it in Google online, or several books in the library. I lived within sight of Superstition Mountain for over 20 years but I never attempted to go hunt for the gold, for reasons you can probably guess. One time, while driving along the Apache Trail -- which goes along the foot of Superstition Mountain and the bank of the Salt River -- I did stop and go through an abandoned gold mine. I did this as I was coming back from fishing at near by Roosevelt Lake. They assured me it was not the Lost Dutchman Mine, but it had produced more than $3 million dollars worth of gold. I took time to go through the shaft, and it was interesting. It was a round hole in the side of the mountain just a few inches higher than my head. It was quite long and had several curves in it. In different places there would be wind blowing in it. I tried to picture the miners hard at work in that little hole back in the early 1900s. When I was in the eighth grade, our class was invited to a ranch out in the desert east of Scottsdale. They told us to watch for deer and to watch out for rattlesnakes and drink lots of water. They also told us of an abandon gold mine about three miles from the ranch house. Three of us boys decided we had to go see the mine. They made sure we had water and gave us directions to the mine. There were no roads to it. When we arrived the mine was a run-down mess. It appeared to be just the way it was when the miners abandoned it many years before. This shaft was vertical, a big hole in the ground, with big, rotting timbers criss-crossed inside, and a homemade ladder made out of tree branches about two inches in diameter nailed down using square cut nails and several rungs were broken or missing. We had been told not to try to go down in the mine, but I don’t think that advice was necessary. It looked like a death trap with those rotting timbers. We tossed some stones into the shaft and they traveled a good distance before we could hear them strike water. This was likely the point where the shaft turned horizontal. Although we would have loved to see into the darkened tunnel, we were not going to. We turned our attention to examining the trash strewed around the outside of the mine. There were bottles and cans of different kinds, a broken pick handle, and some electrical wiring which we speculated was for stringing lights down inside the shaft although we couldn’t figure where the electricity would have come from out there in the lonely desert. Another interesting find was a beat up, rusty ore bucket. It was about the size of a washing machine and made out of thick metal. It had loops around the top where chains could be hooked. The bottom was buried in the sand but we wanted to know if it had wheels on it. The three of us tried to tip it over but were unsuccessful. About that time it dawned on me that we had used up a lot of time and needed to get back to the ranch. When we arrived, we were greeted by some scolding for making them worry about us, but it was worth it, and we had a great time. I love to explore old gold mines, but I will decline trying to find the Lost Dutchman Mine, thank you!