Utah Treasure

2014-01-01T14:50:00.007-07:00

Utah Treasures is dedicated to following the stories of lost gold, buried treasure and Spanish mining in Utah.

Many books have been written on the subject but within them there have been several misleading comments, photos and even some out right lies published to make them more entertaining. We strive to clarify these mistakes and help you to see the true history and wonderful mysteries that Utah holds.

To see the most recent topic, click on "Older Posts" below.

Ram Horn Treasure

2011-09-09T14:11:00.005-06:00

The following story comes from an article in the Daily Herald but the pictures were obtained from the owner when the horns were in the old Current Creek lodge. This could be a just a rare incident where the rams horn became stuck, or an Indian could have hung him there long ago, but the owner has possibly found a connection to a forgotten treasure that the horns may be marking.

"Ron Sweat owns the 8-foot juniper trunk holding the horns, and though reluctance plays out on his face, he knows that at age 64, and with his wife ailing, this astonishing spectacle of natural history now represents his best hope of a retirement nest egg.

Having flatly rebuffed a $100,000 offer, Sweat is seeking no-nonsense buyers with hefty wallets. Though he is not an expert, Sweat has counted the tree's rings and believes they prove the tree dates to 1486, "six years before Columbus."

If the ram's horns are not piquant enough, the trunk also houses the shafts of what Sweat believes to be two American Indian arrows. Slivers of wood from both have been tested by the University of Utah; one came back as greasewood, the other pine, he said. A mysterious square peg embedded in the tree has tested as ash.

Sweat's tale begins with his father in 1944. It was in the winter of that year that the elder Sweat followed the old Spanish Trail on a two-day camping trip into the wilds of Current Creek Mountain to run a trap line. A native of the land who knew the landscape better than most people know the interior of their homes, the elder Sweat "had a tremendous knowledge of the area," Ron Sweat said.

During that fateful trip, his father stumbled upon the horns and skull of a desert ram, fully encased in what had been a crotch of the tree. He also found, somewhere in the area, a tallow lantern and what he described as the head of a Conquistador axe, also both enclosed within the wood of a second juniper.

Sweat said his father told him that part of the wooden handle of the axe remained, and that his father picked up the loose wood remnant, examined it, and put it back into the embedded axe head. He has searched extensively for the lantern and axe, to no avail.

The elder Sweat could not keep himself from telling friends and neighbors about his discovery, and in 1950, on a trip to cut cedar posts to make a corral with, he returned to the tree, taking his two brothers with him to show them his discovery.

"The manager of the natural history museum in Vernal told him to go cut the tree without damaging it and he would stop by and look at it, and if it was what Dad said it was, he would give him $75 for it," Sweat recalled his father telling him. "That was two months wages back then. That was a lot of money."

When his father declined, his two brothers snuck back to the tree in 1951, cut it at about two and a half feet off the ground, and secretly sold the trunk and embedded horns to the owner of a local lodge. The brothers were paid $50.

For a full year the lodge owner kept secret his purchase, but eventually he could not resist putting his treasure on display in the lodge. When he found out what his brothers had done, "Dad was a little bit pissed, because that was his tree," Sweat said.

From 1951 on, the tree was displayed in the lodge. In 1961 the elder Sweat died having left no written record of his discovery, though he told his story to many.

In 1983, perhaps partly to get back what his father had lost, Sweat bought the lodge.

In 1985, the story of the tree took an enigmatic turn when one day a Summit County surveyor happened into the lodge for lunch. When he saw the tree, he was gobsmacked.

For the next 20 years, the surveyor would become an intricate part of the story of the tree. The surveyor told Sweat that while doing a research project in the library of a university in Texas, he had happened upon the journal of a Spanish Conquistador. The journal told a very specific story about a group of Spaniards trekking through the West on a journey funded by a Jewish aristocrat in Spain who had "sent his son along to protect his interest," Sweat recalled the man telling him.

The journal's tale was convoluted and lengthy, but in the end the aristocrat's son cached a treasure of gold by marking the spot with a desert ram's horn in the crotch of a tree, along with a ritual ceremony marking the tree. The son and his crew of 11 men never arrived back at the rendezvous point near present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two search parties over the next year failed to find a trace of them, or the cache.

Sweat says he has searched extensively for the gold and believes it has long since been taken. The surveyor has flown back to Texas and searched for the book he read in college, but neither he nor library staff have been able to find the journal.

Sweat's father died when Sweat was about 17 years old, without ever having shown his son exactly where he had found the tree his brothers had cut down, though he had told the younger Sweat how to find the general area. Over the years, many people who came into the lodge claimed to have been told by the elder Sweat where the tree stump remained.

"I got reports that it was from everywhere," Sweat says with a smile.

Then one day, a mysterious woman came to the lodge and told him not only details of how his father found the tree that Sweat had never known before, but also detailed directions to the stump. As the woman began to leave, Sweat begged her to go with him to the stump, but the woman said she had given him more than enough information and promised he would find the stump without trouble.

Which he did.

Not only does the stump perfectly fit the outline of the tree trunk, but it has the other half of what Sweat believes to be a peculiar Conquistador marking on the trunk he owns. It is unquestionably the stump where his father found the tree in 1944, Sweat said.

How did the mysterious woman know the exact location of the stump, and new details of the story of its discovery?

Faced with this question is the only time during his Daily Herald interview that Sweat demures.

"She was psychic, I guess," he says, his face a perfectly expressionless poker-player's visage. Then his eyes shift to the ground, perhaps belying that there is more to this part of the story than he wants to tell now.

In 2001, Sweat sold the lodge, keeping the tree trunk and horns for himself. The lodge has since been torn down. After a half-century in the public eye, the tree trunk has been put away in a safe place. Sweat asked the Daily Herald not to reveal both where he lives or where the tree trunk is stored, for security reasons.

There is one more reason why the tree might be very valuable, he said. It appears to qualify, through a complex scoring process, as one of the top three largest pairs of desert rams horns to ever be measured. Collectors pay large sums for world-record desert ram horns that are modern; the unique nature of Sweat's pair of horns would presumably only drive up demand and value, perhaps meteorically so, he said.

For those who might, upon reading this story, decide to hunt on their own for the stump of his tree, or the lantern and axe, Sweat wishes them luck.

"There are a million or two junipers on Current Creek," he says in his slow voice.

A taxidermist has recently cleaned and whitened the skull, in the process removing the historic patina. Sweat said neither the tree nor horns have ever been seen by experts because "I just haven't gotten around to having it examined." He pauses. "I'm kind of scared of too many people knowing that I have it because it is one of a kind."

Sweat also has one of the spinal bones of the ram that was found with the skull; the bone is a perfect fit at the base of the ram's skull.

Sweat would like to have the entire 400-pound trunk X-rayed to reveal the embedded horn and to see if the arrow shafts have arrow heads on them.

He is prepared to sell the tree trunk and horns "at a price," he said. "I would like to sell it to a museum so people can look at it, but I am not going to give it away."

Sweat also said he will take the buyer to the tree's stump.

Interested parties are asked to contact Sweat's agent, Cary Seegmiller, at 801-687-2000."

Hoyts Peak

2011-08-10T15:43:00.004-06:00

The Josephine de Martinique

The Josephine is believed by many local treasure hunters to be located on Hoyts Peak although there is still some debate on the issue. As of 2006 the mine was closed permanently by the forest service due to safety issues. The upper entrance to the mine is still open and is called the Glory Hole. This is a natural cave that intersects the original mine. Over the years several different ventures have worked to re-open all the different passages of the mine. To this day nothing of significance has been found within the mine, although the current claim holder is hoping to recover emeralds inside the cave.

The inscription on the gate reads "Remember the people under servitude or slavery that mined for the Spaniards."

Jeff Baird descending the 40 ft. vent into the Glory Hole.

George Thompson shares information that he had learned regarding the Josephine in his book "Faded Footprints" on pg, 56.

"The earliest record is a waybill left by Jose Joaquin Garcia, penned in 1814, several decades before he sketched his now famous map. That document refers to work which was performed at mines on Hoyt Peak as far back as 1782. It was discovered in the Spanish Archives at Mexico City through the efforts of Russell R. Rich, Professor of Early History, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. It is quite likely that Professor Rich also dis covered the Garcia Map of 1821-1826, described earlier. Both the map and the document appeared at about the same time. Another document recently uncovered in the Archives at Seville states that the Garcia Mine was registered in 1722, and was worked until 1749, when it was abandoned due to Indian troubles, and wasn't reopened until 1782. The mine was owned by the Garcia family for nearly a century. The waybill discov ered by Professor Rich has been authenticated by docu ment experts who have examined it in great detail; their opinions stating that the language of that document is consistent with the period in which it was written, and that several now archaic words and phrases in it would be unknown to anyone not living at that time.

Documents written by the well educated class, such as the clergy, were actually written in a script known as "procesal," in which it isn't unusual to find words of Arabic, Greek and Latin origin. The procesal style of writing is a continuous flowing script of rounded Arabic-like letters and abbreviations, having little or no punc tuation to indicate where sentences or phrases end. Bundles of documents called "legajos" may each con tain thousands of pages, which for the most part do not relate to each other. A researcher must examine each legajo one page at a time, each one only part of an esti mated fifty-million documents in the Spanish Archives at Seville. A document similar to the Garcia waybill reveals the many different forms which letters in procesal might take. For example: In that ancient script, the letter "A" is shown in fourteen different styles, "E" in twenty-one styles, "P" in sixteen and even the little used letter "Z" in thirteen styles! It would be virtually impos sible for someone today to forge such a document."

Spanish translation (from Faded Footprints - corrections are bolded).

Charted Course - Year - 1722 - 1814. This charted course pertains to the Mine of the Yutas: Named later the Josephine - of Martinique, the Empress. This mine can he found, west 12 leagues of the river Timpagos headland and 2 leagues from the entrance of the river Santa Ana to the Southeast---travel 1 league south by the land of the valley of grass to a can yon which enters the valley from the east, continue this canyon east to a peak rounded and barren of growth, and from the peak measure 1,600 varas to the northeast Al Pont de la Mina hay una picachos chico y maderaje alcance en la basa de negra chico borde
The mine of the Josephine - of Martinique has 3 tunnels and 1 shaft--2 tunnels of 1200 feet to the west and 1 tunnel of 975 feet runs to the southeast The tunnels and shaft are 1 mine. The shaft runs 103 vertical and has 4 rooms and 6 tunnels. These rooms served as workrooms for the transfer of mineral silver and gold. 80 feet apart at Noonday looking to the sun arc the rooms. By percentage, the metal - namely yellow metal which contains half of silver and Fifth part of gold. There are some ash pits at 137 feet
In this mine we encountered slabs of virgin silver from 1 pound to as much as 125 pounds. In this place in the mint is the treasure of our com panions --128 feet from the entrance of the mine in the middle of the tunnel and 22 feet beyond 1 door of thick timber remains the treasure. At this junc ture is many slabs of virgin silver and 655 Cargas of silver bars and 240 Cargas of gold bars that we value at 6 millions. The treasure abandoned for fear of death by hostile natives---of 42 companions 8 survived.
"The mine was worked in the year 1722 and was closed in 1814, as so marked on the page of the workbook by me Jose Joaquin Garcia, Captain -- Mexico City, No vember of the year 1814.+"

Steven Shaffer's books "Out of the Dust" and "Of Men and Gold" cover in depth the exploration and history of this mine if you wish to read more about it.

The image below is an overlay of the topo with the map of claims filed in the area. Other mines and prospects are located around the Josephine (The Josephine is located in quadrant #1 of the Finnigan claims). Both of the mines in quadrant 7 of the Olivia claims are filled in. I have not visited the mines in quadrant #2, but since all the other have been closed off it is likely that these are as well.

Olivia Claims quadrant 2 mine #1 - 40°41'6.64"N 111°11'45.47"W
Olivia Cliams quadrant 2 mine #2 - 40°41'5.55"N 111°11'44.53"W
Olivia Claims quadrant 7 mine #1 - 40°41'15.47"N 111°11'18.25"W
Olivia Claims quadrant 7 mine #2 - 40°41'17.00"N 111°11'20.51"W

The Black Bull Mine
The black bull mine is not really an old mine, but a cache brought down the mountain from either the Lost Josephine or another mine up Maxwell canyon. Several people have described finding it but could never gain access due to a large black bull that would not move from in front of the entrance. George Thompson shares one such account in his book "Faded Footprints" pg, 52.
"A few years ago, four veteran deer hunters, all of them well along in years, were hunting in the canyon below Duke Peak, not together but close enough they could keep in contact. One of them accidentally came upon that tunnel as he was pushing his way through some thick brush; choke-cherries according to some, but kinikinnick by other accounts. When he met up with his companions a short time later he offered to show them the tunnel, and since it was not far off, they agreed. Weary from the high elevation and dragged down by the weight of years, they trudged back up the mountain side. But as they broke through the brush thicket, a huge black bull suddenly stepped from behind some ledge rock and stopped in front of the tunnel portal. It was an unexpected and unnerving sight, and one of the partners, a superstitious Indian, jumped back in terror, saying that the black bull was the spirit of murdered miners. He turned and fled down the mountain, and his fear must have been contagious, for he was closely followed by his companions. According to the tale, none of them ever went hunting in South Fork Canyon again."

Steven Shaffer showed the entrance to the Black Bull on a documentary he did that aired on the History channel in 2010. He showed the entrance to a cave (known as Dan Clyde Cave today) as being the Black Bull. I don't believe that this matches any of the stories given of the black bull, but it is in the right area.

The Dan Clyde Cave entrance. Could this be the location of the Black Bull cache?

Michael Mimbach descending into the 60 ft. deep pit. Several crevices and canyons extend from the base of the pit. Was the gold cache washed down into one of these cracks?

Spencer Coles attempting to climb into an upper passage of the cave.

Spencer exploring the winding canyon below.

Another cave lies in the Black Bull area. This one floods every spring and is a very wet and muddy cave. If anything was stored here it would be buried in several feet of debris.

The cave in the photo below matches the descriptions given of the black bull mine more than most of the other locations. There appears to have been a cave-in and would require a lot of work to re-open this cave, but you just never know.... maybe it will be worth it?

The Spring Mines

40°40'16.79"N 111°12'35.54"W

The Spring mines are now filled in as well. It looks like the forest service has been busy up on Hoyts. George Thompson shares some info on these mine as well in "Faded Footprints" pg, 59.

"At the top of Hoyt Canyon there is an old shaft timbered with pine poles notched to fit at their corners, not unlike the notched walls of a log cabin. They are green with moss and nearly rotted through, but it is still evident that whoever put them in place was a real timberman, a miner who took pride in his work. A few logs from a fallen cabin are just above that shaft, and there are strange signs cut into large aspen trees nearby. John Young knew of that old digging, for he claimed it as Spring Mine #1. That claim name can still be seen carved into an aspen tree, near where the roads from Hoyt Canyon and Wide Hollow meet. Although Young filed his claim to that shaft, there is no evidence that he ever attempted to pump any of the icy water from it or do any real development work. In July 1993, mineral claims on that shaft were filed by Harry Ayala and Lonnie Mayhew. After an especially hard winter, that shaft was nearly filled with snow water, but they made a camp there and began to pump it dry. They have recovered some good ore samples by probing its depths, but like Young, they too are being harassed by the Forest Service, which agency will not allow them to camp at their claim. To live in the valley and drive into those mountains every day is time consuming and not economically feasible. If they are ever allowed to pump that shaft dry, it will be interesting to see what will be found in its depths."

Foreman Mine

2011-07-24T15:00:00.007-06:00

The Foreman mine is shown in "Faded Footprints" with the author George Thompson in the entry. That picture has always been intriguing to me and we finally took the time to locate it this past weekend. We discovered that the mine is really a natural cave that someone, more recently, has been excavating. There was no evidence of precious metals or minerals, other than calcite, that could make the mine worth while, but it was fun to explore.

Shane Coles in front of the entry.

This is the upper entrance. Both entrances appear natural and are consistent with the type of caves found in the same area.

This is looking at the platform just inside the entry.

Shane climbed down the wet and rotting wood ladder with the use of a rope to investigate the lower passage.

Mayan Artifacts

2011-07-19T11:04:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately these never made it to a museum, but I was able to get some shots of them and am now able to share it here. These were uncovered during the excavation of the temple of the pillars in Chichen Itza Mexico. The tall one in the center is a woman giving birth, and if you zoom in you can see the babies head is actually sticking out. It amazes me how Egyptian looking the figure furthest left is.

The following collection is also not in a museum and came primarily from South America.

American Fork Canyon

2011-06-09T22:28:00.003-06:00

American Fork Canyon is riddled with mines and old prospects from miners who began filing claims there after the discoveries in Little Cottonwood Canyon in the late 1800's. The remains of Forest City, a once active mining town located on Dutchman Flats in the upper reaches of American Fork Canyon, are all but gone and only the cemetery remains today.

Most placer gold found here is extremely fine and even in the best areas you will only get a few specs per pan. The map below shows where the source of most of the gold comes from in the canyon. With so much mineral in the area, why wouldn't there be Spanish activity here as well? One of our discoveries may prove that the Spanish were indeed in A.F. Canyon long before the settlers of Utah and Salt Lake counties.

While most of the mines played out in the early 1900's, one still wonders if they were successful in recovering all of the precious metals from the canyon.

Pacific Mine
The Pacific mine is one of the largest mines in the canyon that was worked in the early 1900's. This is what most of the newer mines in the canyon look like. Large tailing piles, wooden structures for sorting and loading the ore and large, well defined roads or trails leading to them.

The Pacific Mine as it appeared during operation.

The Pacific Mine today.

Burned Canyon Mine
This mine is quite different from any others in the canyon. There is no trail or road to it, the entrance is very small and extremely well hidden and it appears to be a natural cave for the first 15' or so. After that you have to duck under a hanging wall, and then you are in a full blown mine tunnel. This entrance is typical of an old Spanish mine in that the entrance would be small to prevent enslaved workers from making a mass rush out the entrance and thus only one or two guards could be used to oversee the work.

Steep incline down to the floor of the cave.

Someone has run a hose back into the mine to try and syphon out water. In the spring time and even mid summer you are not able to go any farther than the natural cave because water levels are so high.

There are several small formations growing on the ceiling throughout the mine.

An old water wheel is uncovered when the water table is low enough.

This is as far back as I have been able to go. Probably 150' back in, and only 20 or 30 feet down.There is an old wooden track running into the cave from this point.

Skull Cave
This cave was first discovered by two young boys named Dave and Nate in 1988. While exploring they found a flat rock that looked very out of place as it did not match the type or shape of rocks nearby. When they moved it they discovered it concealed the entrance to a natural cavern. This rock had definitely been placed there on purpose and the boys thought they might be on the verge of discovering a hidden treasure.

The lighter colored rock is the original flat rock that concealed the entrance when the cave was first discovered. It is still used today to keep debris or large animals from entering the cave.

Looking down into the cavern.

Michael Coles headed into the cave.

The largest feature inside.

After exploring the cave the boys did not find anything of value, but there are some nice formations inside.

Golden Idol
While exploring the area of the burned canyon mine we saw something glimmering on the edge of a high cliff overlooking the main canyon.

As we got closer we found out it was a golden Buddah. Apparently someone has been doing some meditating here. A tree to the left is covered in prayer flags and there is a little ammo box with some books, snacks, and interestingly enough.... a He-man action figure inside.

Diamond Fork

2011-06-06T10:27:00.002-06:00

Spanish Mine

Shaffer relates a story in his book "Out of the Dust" regarding this old mine discovered in Diamond Fork.

This is the entrance to the lower drift.

Looking down the inclined drift just inside the entrance.

Strangely enough there is a quarts vein running perpendicular to the drift, but they were obviously not very interested in it since the drift continue right past it without any excavation.

The floor at the bottom is filled with dirt and rocks. Since this mine is solid conglomerate, then any dirt would have had to have been hauled in.

This is the entrance to the upper mine drift.

Just inside the upper entrance the mine continues to the left while the hole to the right is a skylight into the lower drift.

Looking back up at the upper entrance.

The upper drift is only 25-30' long and ends in breakdown and fill.

Unfortunately Rhoades never found anything at this location, but rumor has it that several gold bars were uncovered here not too long ago, and judging on the recent hole dug just above the mine (see image below) then the rumors could very well be true.

Sun Face
Steve Shaffer also wrote about the mysterious sun face in his book "Out of the Dust".

When I visited the "sun face" the first time there was no additional carvings around it, but in a more recent trip someone had carved a moon to the right and a little above the sun face.

It is known that the Escalante expedition traveled through Spanish Fork Canyon but the sun face does not appear to be of Spanish Origin. I believe it could very well be a Ute or other local tribe petroglyph; but I have heard others speculate it could be much, much older.

Spanish Cross
This cross is located across the river from the sun face. With the canyons history, this could easily be authentic.

Woodland

2011-06-03T10:57:00.013-06:00

Woodland sits just south of Hoyts Peak right along the Upper Provo river. This area sits just inside the old Rhoades land grant, and has many signs of Spanish mining. There are reports of old mines and vertical shafts found back when the area was first settled in 1867.

While hiking up a small canyon just above Woodland we discovered this old mine. The entrance was a tight squeeze, but it opened up nicely inside. Near the back the walls were covered with a thick coating of calcite deposits, indicating that this mine has not been touch in a very long time.

Looking toward the back from just inside.

Further into the mine the drift splits into two.

The ore vein they were following

There are several natural pockets that this mine broke into. They don't go very far, but show the possibility of a natural cavern in this area.

This was carved on a very large quakie in the ravine below the mine. Is it giving directions to another mine in this canyon?

George Thompson (author of "Faded Footprints") is famous for carving his name into trees in areas he explored. You will likely never see his real name carved since he always used the alias of Tom Thompson.

Rhoades Land Grant

2011-05-18T00:27:00.009-06:00

The map below is the 1858 LDS land grant map. Area #4 lists Brigham Young and Thomas Rhoades as the owners. (Area 4 colored brown for clarity)

The following is an enlargement of area 4.

The land grant included the Kamas Valley (originally named Rhoades valley), the drainage's between the upper Weber River and the Upper Provo River.

The image below is an overlay that I did of the old land grant map with todays satellite image of the area.

While the old sketch is not a perfect match to today's topography, you can see enough features that allow us to determine a little better the actual boundaries of the grant. The northern boundary seems to follow the Weber River right up to Mirror Lake and then down the Duchesne River to where it turns up Iron Mine Creek, across soapstone and down to Woodland on the South side.

"Rhoades first came to the valley in 1859 with about twenty other Mormons including W.O. Anderson, John Turnbow, John Simpson, Morgan Lewis, Daniel Lewis, Alma Williams, Clinton Williams, Richard Venable, Richard Pangburn, John Lambert, and their families. The group clustered together in a fort near a spring on the east side of the valley for the first several years. The log fort was sixteen feet high and the fort walls formed the backs of the houses. Before the group vacated the fort, thirty-two families had lived in it. A log building in the fort's center was used as a schoolhouse, meetinghouse, amusement hall, and center of government."1

After obtaining the grant and moving to Kamas Valley, Rhoades began to work whatever locations they had just obtained the right to in the grant. He soon fell ill and his son Caleb then took over the work for him.

"Family writings say, again, that Father Rhoads and Caleb worked gold mines on this land. Thomas also found "black minerals" in the area - coal that became part of the church mining properties.

Caleb reportedly became the largest tithe payer and one of the most generous members of the church in his almsgiving. Many eyewitnesses said they had seen his gold at various times.

After Walker's death, his brother, Arapeen, took over Ute leadership and continued to allow Caleb Rhoads to harvest gold from the tribe's secret store. But Arapeen's successor, Chief Tabby, denied access.

Chief Tabiuna (Tabby)

Caleb made several covert trips to the site after this, family records say. He also petitioned the U.S. Congress for a land lease and agreed to pay the national debt in exchange. He was frustrated in part by a Utah representative to Congress, George Q. Cannon, who said Rhoads was "only an ignorant prospector and not capable of handling a $100 million deal." In the end, the petition was denied, and the federal government eventually chartered other companies to mine in the Uintas. Government-paid geologists scouted the area and reportedly found many Spanish artifacts, smelter ruins and other signs of ancient mining. But they never found the fabled Rhoads Mine.

Caleb claimed the deposits were in unique formations not usually associated with gold. He said the geologists were looking in the wrong place. Thomas was called in the late 1850s to settle Minersville and help develop silver mines in that area. He died there in 1869."2

1. http://www.onlineutah.com/kamashistory.shtml
2. http://rhodesfamily.org/lostmine.htm

Spanish Amulet

2011-05-12T13:04:00.000-06:00

This amulet was found at Iron Springs west of Cedar City, Utah along the Old Spanish Trail. The amulet is believed to have been from the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition that camped at the springs in 1776. You can see it in the San Rafel museum in Castle Dale, Utah.

How to determine the depth of a mine shaft

2011-05-01T18:23:00.002-06:00

We came across this shaft in the west desert of Utah and decided to drop some rocks down it and see how long it took to hit the bottom.

We determined that a rock falls at 32.2 ft/sec. and increases by that amount every second of free fall until it reaches terminal velocity (which based on the diameter of our rock would be around 170'/second. So the breakdown of how far it fell per second is below:

1st second: 32.2'

2nd second: 64.4'

3rd second: 96.6'

4th second: 128.8'

5th second: 160'

6th second: 170' (terminal velocity reached)

7th second: 170'

8th second: 170'

9th second: 170'

Total feet the rock fell in 9 second - 1,162' !

Mormon Mint

2010-12-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

Missing Territorial Gold Coins
SALT LAKE COUNTY – Between 1848 and 1860, the Mormon Church operated its own mint, which produced gold coins in values of $2.50, $5, $10, and $20 in seven designs. One source claims the mint produced “tens of thousands,” a second states the total contemporary value of the coins was “up to $1,000, 000.” Then, after 20 years in circulation, the coins “almost overnight seemingly disappeared.”
The truth is these coins are so few in number today that the price for a single coin is a small fortune. I found just two for sale on the Internet. Both were Mormon $5 gold pieces; the first was accepting bids, the second had an asking price of $47,500. For any treasure hunter finding just one of these coins would be a jackpot!
After settling in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847, the Mormons used the Barter system and paper script issued by the church in trade. But, after gold was discovered in California in 1848, the need for a medium of exchange that was accepted beyond the influence of the Mormon Church became clear.
Gold coins were first struck from gold dust brought from California by the Mormon Battalion. Later coins were produced from melted Spanish doubloons and raw gold from the Rhodes Mine. Mormon officials admit that no production records were kept, making it impossible to determine the number of coins minted or their denominations.
Adding to the rarity of these coins is the fact that Territorial gold coins were struck to alleviate critical shortages of currency in regions of the U.S. where pioneer settlers had located and almost no form of currency existed. Since most of these coins were used until worn out or lost, all Territorial gold coins today are rare. But the Mormon coins are particularly rare. Today, just 148 of them are known to exist. Explanations offered are:
Widespread melting occurred in the 19th century after the federal government outlawed privately minted money. Because of their faith in Church-minted gold, Mormon settlers cached much of these coins with the uncertainty caused by the approach of the Civil War.
Many coins were lost in public places, such as stores, saloons, stables, picnic areas and rodeo grounds.
So many of these coins were sent back east that, by 1851, Brigham Young declared that not a single gold coin could be found in Salt Lake City. Regardless of what happened to them, if you’re lucky enough to find one today I’d hang on to it very closely. With a good detector you might want to consider a trip to visit Utah. The last Mormon gold piece found was in 1909 before the advent of the metal detector.

Sources:
Irons, Angie, “Millions in Mormon Gold Coins Remain Unfound,” April 1991, Lost Treasure magazine, p. 21
Thompson, George A, “Missing Gold Coins Worth Up To $6,500 Each!” May 1972, Treasure World, p. 36.

House Range

2010-12-07T17:01:00.011-07:00

The House Range stretches some 60 miles in a north-south direction and forms the western boundary of Sevier Valley. It extends from Sand Pass southward to the Wah-Wah Valley. Along its entire length the range is no more than 10 miles wide.

Although very little gold has ever been recorded as coming out of this range, it is one of the few places I have found it. Small as it was, it was still evidence that there is gold in the area and it can still be found today.

Notch Peak is one of the highest peaks in the House Range, reaching 9,654 feet (2,943 m) above sea level. The northwest face of the mountain is a massive carbonate rock (limestone and dolomite) cliff with 2,200 feet (670 meters) of vertical rise, making it among the highest cliff faces in North America.

Lost Placer Load

   Due to the remote location and rugged terrain of the House Range, it still holds many secrets today from the few who venture out to explore it towering cliffs. Prospectors have roamed these mountains for over two centuries and evidence of early Spanish mining activity still occasionally surfaces. Caches of old Spanish tools and mining equipment have been discovered in the central part of the range, near the only major gold-producing area in the entire county.
     Millard County has never been a major producer of gold. Only 500 ounces are officially recorded for the county. Most of this production hails from the small placer deposits of the House Range. Located in North Canyon and Miller Canyon, the gold placers were worked extensively during the 1930's.
   There is one story in particular that I know of regarding an incredibly rich placer deposit somewhere in the House Range. In a single transaction, the discoverer of this placer sold more than 300 ounces of gold - 60% of the total recorded production for the entire county! The discovery occurred sometime during the late 1930's. A Mexican sheepherder working in the House Range stumbled upon a glory hole of placer gold somewhere on the slopes of the mountains. The deposit must have been rich for the Mexican turned up in the nearby town of Delta with several sacks of fine gold dust. On one of his visits, the sheepherder sold more than 20 pounds of gold to a local doctor. Of course, the Mexican never revealed the location of his find and soon dropped out of sight. He was never seen again. Prospectors have searched the House Range for many years but the Mexican's lost placer remains hidden to this day.

Ute Treasure Pact

2010-12-07T14:50:00.010-07:00

In 1993 the Deseret News published the following article concerning a treasure hunt venture with the Ute Indians. We will likely never hear if anything was discovered during the venture.

Deseret News Tuesday, October 12, 1993
UTES OK PACT TO HUNT FOR LOST TREASURES

Company to use new technologies in search for stashes of precious metals.

   Rumors of hidden treasures of gold stashed deep in the Uinta Mountains have existed for decades. Leaders of the Ute Indian Tribe have decided it's time to take advantage of the state-of-the-art technology that can make exploration for precious metals cost effective and have hired a company to search for lost treasure believed to be buried centuries ago on what is now tribal trust land.
   The Ute Tribal Business Committee has approved a resolution allowing the exploration of "precious metals and treasure-trove" on land held in trust for them by the federal government.
   The committee has hired Jim Phillips and Associates for a period of 90 days "to initiate procedures for finding precious metals on behalf of the tribe." According to the resolution, Phillips will work for expenses, plus 10 percent of treasure-trove actually found and recovered.
   All treasure-trove will be inventoried and kept in the possession of the tribe. Phillips is to receive a negotiated sum approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for precious metals found and mined.
   The resolution calls for Phillips to be accompanied by a tribal representative at all times. That representative will also make periodic reports to the Business Committee.
   The Business Committee decided to approve the treasure hunt after receiving "substantial pressure from various sources to allow outside groups to explore for precious metals" and in the interest of economic development.
   Precious metals may include gold, silver, platinum and treasure-trove, according to the resolution. The search is reportedly centered in the Rock Creek area where it's believed Spanish Conquistadors used slave labor to mine vast tracts of gold.
   The gold was stored in caches in the mountains until it was time to transfer it every four years to "headquarters" located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Numerous caches were believed to be forgotten or lost when the Spanish left the area.
   Not all tribal members approve of the treasure hunt. Some maintain the search will desecrate ancient burial grounds and say the gold should stay buried in the earth forever. "That stuff has a life of its own. When you get near it you can feel it," said one tribal member. "That's why we have never disturbed it, not even on our lands in Colorado."

Gale Rhoades

2010-12-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

Gale spent several winters planning and writing his last book "Lost Gold of the Uintah". The summers were spent in his relentless search for the lost gold. Gale was involved in the excavation of an old mine on Hoyt Peak. He was to meet the Publisher at the end of September 1988 to begin final preparation for publication of his book. However Gale telephoned the Publisher on September 20th to say he needed another week on Hoyt Peak to finish his project. Gale Rhoades passed away from a sudden heart attack September 27, 1988 on Hoyt Peak, in the mountains he so dearly loved. Gale knew his time was short as he prepared this book so the legends of the Rhoades family might be pursued by others. THE REST OF THE STORY is the information Gale held back from prior publications and includes 40 years of his lifes pursuit.

Johnson Canyon

2010-12-07T10:14:00.027-07:00

Montezumas Treasure

February 1519 a fleet of eleven Spanish ships landed on the coast of Mexico near the modern day port of Vera Cruz. Onboard was a force of nearly six hundred Conquistadors; led by the infamous Hernán Cortés, they had come to Mexico to conquer the land and convert its people to Christianity in the name of the Holy Roman Church… And if they all got filthy rich in the process — that was okay too!

Hernan Cortés

When news of the strange, white-skinned men reached the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, he must have been reminded of the prophecy of Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec sun god, which stated that one day the god would return to the land of the Aztec to claim his throne – and he would be known by his shining hair and white skin.

Montezuma dispatched servants bearing rich gifts for the newly arrived gods in hopes that they would go away and leave him in charge. But Montezuma’s plan backfired – when Cortés saw the precious objects, crafted from gold and silver, he knew he’d come to the right place – he immediately set his sights on the Aztec’s capitol city of Tenochtitlán, (present day Mexico City).

On November 18, 1519, Cortés entered the Aztec capital and was received as a god at a lavish ceremony in Montezuma’s palace.

Montezuma was use to being at the top of the food-chain, so after the ceremony he once again tried to persuade Cortés and his men to leave the city by offering more gifts of gold and silver, but this just intensified the Spaniards lust for gold. Cortés placed Montezuma under house arrest and then, along with about 600 native Tlaxcalan allies, the Spaniards set up base in one of the Aztec’s many ceremonial temples.

With Montezuma imprisoned the conquistadors went about ransacking his palace where they found a secret vault so full of treasure that it took three days just to divide the spoils. It was enough to make every Spaniard rich beyond his wildest dreams – but still they wanted more…

In the following months Cortés began a bloody campaign of terror. His men terrorized the city, torturing and killing it’s inhabitants in an attempt to obtain even more treasure – including the location of the fabled city of El Dorado.

The Aztecs eventually grew weary of the Spaniard’s tyranny, and over time they began to question Cortés’ divinity as well, so when a group of conquistadors destroyed one of the cities main temples, and slaughtered it’s high priests, things turned against the Spaniards.

On June 30, 1520, the Aztec people rose against the Spaniards. Cortés forced the imprisoned Montezuma to appear upon the piazza of his house in an attempt to pacify his subjects. But apparently, the people had had enough of Montezuma as well. The Emperor was stoned to death by his own people.

With their hostage dead, Cortés and his men were forced to flee the city. They retreated amid a full on uprising, attacked from all sides by Aztec spears and stones. As the conquistadors fled the city, they threw down their newly won fortunes, littering the cities’ network of concentric irrigation channels with the treasure they had stolen from Montezuma’s treasury.

Many of Cortés’ men died on that dark and rainy night. It’s said that the bodies of the dead were piled so high in the citie’s canals that one could walk across them, from one side to the next – a grisly bridge of corpses. The night came to be known as La Noche Triste (The Sad Night).

Cortés rebuilt his army and a year later returned to Tenochtitlan. On August 13, 1521, with the help of his Tlaxcalan allies, Cortés took the city back. The new Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc, was captured while fleeing the city and tortured to reveal the locations of the Aztec treasure. But even with his feet held in a fire, the doomed Emperor couldn’t produce more than a canoe full of trinkets. According to Cuauhtémoc, the treasure was forever lost.

In desperation Cortés allowed for the torturing of anybody who he thought might help him discover the location of the treasure, men, women or children.

As the story goes, the only information ever gleaned by torturing these poor people was that the treasure had been taken north and hidden at the bottom of a lake. Cortés would later search approximately 5,000 lakes in the surrounding regions in an effort to find Montezuma’s treasure…

He never did.

WHERE DID MONTEZUMA’S TREASURE GO?

There are many theories about what happened to Montezuma’s Treasure. Some historians believe that it remains right where it was dropped that fateful night when the Conquistadors fled from Tenochtitlan, buried for all time beneath layers of silt and cement of modern day Mexico city.

Others believe the treasure was retrieved from the irrigation channels by the Spaniards when they took the city back, sent to Spain, then lost at sea when the ship that carried it was sunk by a tropical storm. But surely the most interesting theory involves an incredible journey of Biblical proportion.

There’s a persistent tale handed down by descendants of the Aztecs in Costa Rica – it goes a little something like this:

When Cortés and his soldiers were driven from Tenochtitlan on La Noche Triste, the Aztec high Priests knew it would only be a matter of time before the Spaniards returned. They realize that they could not defend against the conquistador’s superior weapons forever – their civilization was doomed.

The priests dug up the body of their fallen leader, Montezuma, then led a procession of more than 2,000 men on a mass exodus in search a new land to the north, a land that would be safe from the barbaric Spaniards.

The priests took with them the collected treasures of the Aztec empire, tons of gold and silver in the form of sacred religious objects they would need to reestablish their once great civilization.

According to the legend, the treasure-bearing slaves traveled in a northwesterly direction for many moons, and when they came to a mountain on the edge of a desert, the treasure was hidden and the slaves put to death.

There is much disagreement about just how far north the exodus traveled, but certainly the most interesting theory circulating among the treasure hunting community is that the treasure was carried over two thousand miles to southern Utah.

A few miles east of Kanab, a deep canyon slices northward through the Vermillion Cliffs of Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. Johnson Canyon has an eclectic past. During the 1870’s the infamous John D. Lee, chief perpetrator in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, called the canyon home. In the mid-1900’s it served as movie set for multiple Hollywood westerns. While being featured in Gunsmoke was no doubt a prestigious achievement, what really fascinated me was the canyon’s central role in one of Utah’s biggest treasure hunts.

In 1914, a man named Freddie Crystal walked down Main Street in Kanab clutching a treasure map. He claimed that his map revealed the hiding place of King Montezuma’s fabled Aztec treasure. When the outsider inquired around town, obliging locals informed Freddie that his map resembled a section of the White Cliffs northeast of the city limits.

Crystal spent several years fruitlessly scouring the area, until he ran across some moqui steps carved into the canyon wall. Alongside the carvings, he found what appeared to be three sandstone tunnels. One of the tunnels, he claimed, was blocked off with stone and mortar foreign to the area.

Mr. Crystal returned to Kanab seeking help. In return, he promised to share the abundant treasure lying in wait. Crystal and his newly gathered posse of Kanabites pitched their tents at the base of the White Cliffs near Cottonwood and Skutumpah Canyons. As they commenced digging, the group allegedly found multiple chambers and side passages within the cliffs; some blocked off with stone and mortar, just like the tunnel entrance had been.

After a few months of digging and no treasure to show for it, most of the residents gave up their dreams of riches and resumed the normal routine of their lives. All the explorers had found in the cliffs was a sandstone chamber housing a few Native-American artifacts and human remains. Crystal, however, remained convinced that he was hot on Montezuma’s trail. He spent several more years in the canyons surrounding Kanab, searching for signs.

Freddie Crystal believed the Aztecs had chipped those passages out of the sandstone cliff to serve as a secret cache for their riches. He subscribed wholeheartedly to old legends claiming that King Montezuma spirited off a portion of the Aztec royal treasury during their conflict with Cortez and the Conquistadors.

(story courtesy of WildernessUtah.com)

In the spring of 1989, Grandt Child came up with another theory. He decided that the real hiding place was not in Johnson's Canyon and the signs in the canyon were a ploy to divert attention from the real hiding place. Child believes the treasure is in the lower pond of the three lakes chain, six miles north of Kanab on Highway 89. He found an Aztec treasure sign, a circle with an arrow pointing down, carved in the rock 8 feet above the water level on the wall above the lakes. The site fits the criteria for an Aztec treasure hiding technique, called a "water trap."

Tony Thurber, friend of Child's, made a dive to explore the lake. Under the treasure sign he discovered a tunnell about four feet wide and seven feet tall that appeared to be handmade. When Thurber got 30 feet into the tunnel, he was disoriented and couldn't tell if he was going down or up, or in or out. He said he got caught in a heavy draft and was afraid he might get swept into an underground river.

He finally found his way out. He went down again with a tether line attached, but surfaced. He got concerned when he found the line limp rather than taut as it should have been. The person holding the line said it had been taut the whole time.

On June 22, 1989, Thurber returned with three professional divers. The divers got 70 feet back in the tunnel. Their sonar equipment showed the tunnel was 100 feet long and ended in a room 80 feet in diameter. Detectors registered heavy metal at the end of the tunnel. It was late, so they quit for the day. That night Russ, one of the divers, had a dream. In the dream he swam back to the cave, an Aztec warrior with a spear was waiting and threw the spear at Russ when he surfaced.

Russ was the first to go down the next morning. At a certain point in the tunnell, he started screaming that someone was grabbing and choking him. As he was pulled from the water he appeared white as a sheet. Another diver went down and had the same experience.

The divers left and returned in two weeks. They experienced the same choking sensation in the tunnell and had to be pulled up. The diving crew did not dive in the lake anymore.

Childs decided on a plan to drain the lake. To his surprise, the pond happens to be the only known habitat of the Kanab Amber Snail. The property was fenced off by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Then in December of 1991, 11 geese were mysteriously placed in the pond. The gaggle of geese was accused of eating the Kanab Amber Snails. The agency decided to capture the suspects and force them to vomit. After gathering the evidence, the geese were donated to an animal sanctuary. Killing one of the endangered snails is a serious offense and carries a fine of up to $50,000 per snail. No one came forward to claim the geese.

Information courtesy Southern Utah News, June 27, 1990.

OTHER THEORIES ON THE TREASURE’S LOCATION

There are many other theories about what happened to Montezuma’s Treasure, but none of them are half as fun as the Utah theory:

The Grand Canyon

In 1865, a prospector by the name of Jim White was rafting down the Colorado River. He claims to have discovered a cave that contained thousands and thousands of golden idols and other objects, Montezuma’s treasure. White reached civilization after weeks of hardships. He was starving and delirious when he got to a town. He said the cave was located near the ruins of an old Indian camp on the south bank of the Colorado in the Lower Granite Gorge of the Grand Canyon, about three miles from Pierce Ferry. Many searches have turned up nothing.

(Story coutesy http://www.treasurestories.com)

Lake Tezcuco

Some believe that when the inhabitants of Tenochtitlán got wind of the Spaniards return, they buried the remains of the city’s treasure in and around Lake Tezcuco to prevent it from falling prey to the gold-crazed Conquistadors. Today, a vast treasure trove may still remain hidden beneath nearly five centuries of mud and sludge on the outskirts of Mexico City, the modern day incarnation of Tenochtitlán. Generations of treasure seekers have sought the lost hoard without success. A former president of Mexico even had the lake bed dredged, but no treasure was found.

Guatemala

According to information first discovered by an archaeologist named Thomas Gann, Montezuma’s treasure was not sent north, but south into the jungles of Guatemala to keep it from the Spanish.

The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine – Arizona

Some believe there’s a link between the Legendary Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine and Montezuma’s Gold. Jacob Waltz, (the Dutchman) found a source of pure, raw gold in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, a location geologists say is devoid of gold deposits. It’s this apparently lack of mineral evidence which has led some researchers to speculate that the Dutchman may have actually stumbled over Montezuma’s fabled Lost Aztec Treasure.

George Thompson

2010-12-07T09:22:00.014-07:00

George Thompson was the author of the four books listed below. He spent much of his life in search of hidden treasures in Utah. He passed away in a car accident as opposed to some speculation that he was killed while prospecting. Below is the article form the Deseret news of his death.

Deseret news: may 4, 1995

ACCIDENT ON I-80 CLAIMS HEBER MOTHER AND SON

An accident on I-80 claimed the lives of a mother and son Wednesday afternoon.

Killed were: George Thompson, 65, Heber. Bessie Thompson, in her 90s, also of Heber.

The Thompsons were struck by an eastbound car near I-80 and 1700 East about 2:10 p.m. after crossing the freeway median, according to Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Kathy Slagowski.

"The victims were originally traveling west on I-80, then apparently turned through the divider to go east. They were then hit by the oncoming car" said Slagowski.

Bessie Thompson died at the scene after being ejected from the Jeep Cherokee, said Slagowski. George Thompson was taken to LDS Hospital where he died a short time later.

The 18-year-old driver of the eastbound car was treated at the accident scene for minor injuries and released.

Investigators said the victims were not wearing seat belts.

Faded Footprints
The Lost Rhoads Mines And Other Treasure Tales of the Uinta Mountains Killer Mountains

This fascinating and long-awaited book tells the real story of the lost Rhoads gold mine as well as tales of many other lost and forgotten mines and treasures in Utah's "killer" mountains, mountains where many prospectors and treasure hunters have met untimely and mysterious deaths. Published for the first time ever are drawings of old treasure hunters' maps and other information gathered in decades of research and searching. In this book can be found information that Footprints in the Wilderness, the book many use in their search for the lost Rhoads mine, does not contain. Faded Footprints now amplifies and clarifies much of that earlier book. This book is a must for every treasure hunter's bookshelf, as well as being a rich treasure trove of information for all those interested in Utah history and mining.

Some Dreams Die

Utah's Ghost Towns and Lost Treasures

Some Dreams Die is the most comprehensive guide to Utah's ghost towns ever assembled. In the course of his research the author visited the sites of over four hundred deserted communities and probed their unique histories. Each town is carefully described and located, making it simple for the reader to retrace the author's steps and visit these monuments to perseverance, gumption, faith, greed, and foolishness. 120 photographs and 12 detailed regional maps make it the most useful book of its kind.

Throw Down The Box!

Treasure Tales From Gilmer and Salisbury, The Western Stagecoach King

This is the story of Gilmer & Salisbury, giants of western stagecoaching, the company whose stages rolled along more than six thousand miles of road, in every western state. Their main lines, along with dozens of smaller branch lines, served nearly every mining camp, and ranch town in the West, but few today remember Gilmer & Salisbury, for much of their history has been lost or forgotten. Hopefully, this book will recapture part of their colorful and fascinating story.

Treasure Mountain Home

Park City Revisited

This entertaining volume tells the history of Park City, Utah from its first days as a frontier mining camp to its present status as one of America's premier winter-sports havens. Between these two incarnations the famed "treasure chest of the Wasatch" was home to breeds of men and ways of life as extinct today as the mechanical dinosaurs that litter the hillsides around the town, reminding visitors of her origins. How the city survived the vicious cycles of boom and bust, speculation and panic and the Great Depression is recalled, always with an eye to the fascinating characters who propelled her history.

Steve Shaffer

2010-12-07T09:05:00.004-07:00

Steve B. Shaffer was born in Salt Lake City in 1947. At age sixteen, he left home, looking for adventure. Eventually, he became friends with several members of the Ute Tribe in the Roosevelt, Utah, area. Steve learned a great deal from his new friends and grew to love and appreciate their knowledge and wisdom.

When Steve turned eighteen, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving as a Ranger of the 1/16 Inf. “Rangers” 1st Inf. Division. As an adult, Steve’s love for the Uinta Mountains grew, and he often hiked the mountains in search of Spanish mines and treasures. His relentless pursuits have paid off, and he has been rewarded with some exceptional finds.

Steve graduated from the North American School of Conservation and from the Division of Wildlife Resources Hunter Education Instructors Academy in 1981. He received his associate’s degree in applied science in the pipe trades and his bachelor’s degree in archaeology from Kennedy International University. Steve also has a Masters Arts Degree.

Steve has written several books about ancient civilizations in the West and about Spanish miners in early Utah, including La Mina del Yutas, Of Men and Gold, Nachi, Treasures of the Ancients and Out of the Dust. Steve can be seen in the documentaries Tops of the Mountains and The Golden Rhoades.

Steve and his wife, Bonnie, live in Santaquin, Utah. They have ten children, twenty-nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

(bio shared from Steves website: http://www.ancienttreasurehunter.com/acontent/)

Bear Wallow

2010-12-03T09:56:00.003-07:00

Triangle Stone Mine

George Thompson shared the following story in his book "Faded Footprints" on page 122.

An old cabin in Bear wallow as we found it in 1992. It is much worse condition now.

Could this be the cabin that is close to the old mine? If so your search might start here.

"Strange things have happened at Bear Wallow, north of Pigeon Water and east of the long ridge separating it from Dry Canyon and Miner's Gulch. Several hikers have seen a well hidden mine portal there. The late John Sprecker of Duchesne was hunting deer when he noticed a peculiar slab of rock, obviously not native to that area. That rock was quite large and triangular in shape, but what set it apart from the common red sandstone was its white color. Sprecker wasn't aware that Spanish miners often placed such stones as trail markers or to draw attention to a particular area. He tried to lift that rock and in so doing discovered that it was balanced so that it could easily be turned sideways. When that white stone was rotated to the side a small vertical shaft below it was uncovered. That stone had been purposely placed to conceal the entry to that shaft. A rotted chicken pole ladder proved that men had once descended into that pit. Sprecker planned to have someone help him investigate that shaft, but unfortunately, he died not long after his discovery, so that its location was lost.

Curiosity sometimes tempts fate, for just last summer that same out-of-place white marker stone was found again. Mark Mason was hiking in the Bear Wallow area when he stopped to look more closely at a symbol cut into a tree; a triangle with a dot in its center. Looking beyond that tree, he was surprised to see a triangular shaped white stone shaped just like the triangle on the tree. He said that he wouldn't have seen the stone if he hadn't sighted past that sign tree. Mason wondered why there should be a large white stone where all of the rock was red sandstone, but like Sprecker before him, he too was unaware of Spanish marker stones and continued on his way. It wasn't until I told him of John Sprecker's discovery of a shaft beneath that stone that he decided to return to Bear Wallow and check out that marker rock, that is if he can find that Spanish tree sign again!

Old-timers around the Duchesne area tell of a Spanish mine at Bear Wallow and a small cabin close to it. The portal of that mine is concealed by stones piled over it, but even though it is well concealed, it is still guarded by an Indian whose only job is to keep "white-eyes" away from the hoard of gold said to be cached there. Two prospectors told of accidentally stumbling onto that old cabin site, and they said that although its roof is sagging, its walls are still standing. Their tale of seeing a human skeleton sitting on a chair inside that cabin might be attributed to too active an imagination, or perhaps too many drinks of Old Blabber Mouth; that is if their story wasn't corroborated by others who claim to have seen the same thing, when they were perfectly sober. A man of some stature and civic responsibility at Roosevelt City, a man who is a teetotaler, told of seeing that same cabin while deer hunting with his father-in-law, who is a Ute Indian. He said the body inside that cabin is still dressed in leather boots and shreds of what were once trousers, but his shirt has completely rotted and fallen away. But most un-nerving to look at is that skeleton's long, stringy red hair, all covered with dust and cobwebs! But steer clear of Bear Wallow, he cautions, for it is certain death to be caught near that old cabin and mine tunnel!"

Farm Creek (Hanna to Rock Creek)

2010-11-29T09:47:00.010-07:00

Red Narrows
The red narrows along Farm Creek are a part of many treasure stories that I have read but remain on private property and trespassing there is taken very seriously. Without the ability to really search this area, I can only share a few stories from the books and some photos from a friend that who has had permission to explore the area a little.

George Thompson published a description of the old trail going over Farm Creek in his book "Faded Footprints" pg. 52 and 53.

"Back in the early days of Thomas Rhoads and Chief Wakara, the Farm Creek Trail went East from the present site of Hanna to the Red Ledges, and from there followed the Main Fork of Farm Creek, not the Right Fork as the present road does. It turned northward through the Red Narrows, also called the Red Gatein some waybills or the Red Spot on some old maps. The trail continued up the canyon past Round Grove, where it turned up canyon past Round Grove, where it turned up Rough Canyon, known to old timers as Sink Canyon. It crossed the divide on the south flank of Farm Creek Peak and passed through the 10,000 foot high McAfee Basin. From there it turned down Dick Hollow to the old Hathenbruck Crossing on Rock Creek, located just downstream from Mount Albert."

The Red Narrows of Farm Creek.

In the photograph above you can clearly see the stepped ledge on the right hand side of the narrows as shown on a map published by Gale Rhoades in his book "Lost Gold of the Uintahs".

The photo below is of the twin knolls shown in Gale's map.

Image courtesy of "a friend"

There is no mine or treasure here as Gale suggests, but there is a monument (see image below) that again points the way to another monument that marks the path along the old Spanish trail up Farm Creek.

Image courtesy of "a friend"

Maybe these monuments lead to the gold shown in a map (shown below) drawn by Caleb Rhoades in 1905. (Published by Gale Rhoades in "Lost Gold of the Uintahs")

The following was again published in Gales book and depicts the Red Narrows area.

This old cabin is located just below the twin knolls. Could this be an old cabin used by Caleb as he visited the mines in this area?

Image courtesy of "a friend"

The area is private property, and yes... the Indians are watching.

Yellowstone Canyon

2010-11-21T16:27:00.045-07:00

Yellow Ledges Mine
George Thompson tells the following story in his book "Faded Footprints" (pg, 133) which could be referring to the mine above.

"If you look closely, you might see an old mine on the west side of the canyon just before the old road which used to follow the Yellowstone River leaves Indian land to enter the national forest. It is often difficult to see when summer growth covers the mountain, for its opening was covered with stones and grassy top soil a long time ago. Just beyond that mine are the Yellow Ledges, shown on most forest maps. Recently some tests were made on surface ore which came from those Yellow Ledges, which revealed that there is a lot of silver there. One of the clues Caleb Rhoads mentioned was that one of his mines was located close to some yellow ledges. That ledge area along the Yellowstone is peculiar, which places which are barren, where nothing grows. An engineer may have learned why that is, for he tested water from springs below those ledges and discovered they have a Ph factor of 2.8, which he says accounts for the sterility of the soil and rock. A PH factor of 7 represents a neutral condition, while 2.8 indicates that water is highly acidic, a condition no doubt caused by those spring waters percolating through ore beds somewhere below the surface; according to that engineer, probably close to the surface. It is noteworthy that those springs are located right where the eastern end of the Hoyt Peak Fault breaks the surface."

The mine is covered with rocks and logs to make it appear caved or filled in.

Below the first layer of rock and debris there is a tarp and another layer of logs underneath to keep the entrance accessible.

Looking toward the back of the mine. There are two different passages that are only 25' - 30' long each.

George again tells of another mine close by the one mentioned above in his book "Faded Footprints" (pg, 133).

"There is still another Spanish diggings in sight of those Yellow Ledges, but lower on the slope and nearer the river. It is more difficult to find, for some years back the Ute Tribe had the tunnel and waste dump leveled off, but if you climb atop the low ridge which runs between the present road and the river, you can see where it was located. Before it was leveled, there was a large tunnel there, big enough that horse drawn carettas could be taken into it. A wide vein of low grade ore can still be seen about a half-mile before entering forest lands, just after a cattle guard is crossed. That low-grade ore was carried to the river on carettas, where it was concentrated. You can still see where rock from that mine was dumped into and along the river. There is a story that some bars of silver are still buried near that mill site. There are a few old-timers in the Altamont area who say that a Forest Ranger recovered two of those bars. One of the Ute tribal council warned him not to go back there, and he didn't.

There is a giant yellow pine which stands alone on an open flat near the river and not far from that mine by the Yellow Ledges. Carved deeply into its bark is a large Catholic cross. That tree isn't hard to find, for it is the only large pine on that flat, but it may not stand much longer, for it is so old that many of its branches are dying. That mine may be almost as old as the tree. Some who fish along the river near that old pine have encountered "Susie," an old Indian woman who packs baskets of heavy yellow sand from the mountain front near the old mine. Those who have watched her closely say that she carries that dirt to the river, where she washes it in an old dish pan. They say she makes beautiful things from the gold she recovers from her crude panning operation.

Some believe it may be hazardous to their health to search for Spanish mines on Indian ground. During the 1989 deer hunt, not far from that giant yellow pine with the ancient Catholic cross and the old mine covered with rocks, a hunter from California came upon a shallow grave. Wild animals had dug into it, exposing part of a human leg and a hand and forearm. The remains were not old and appeared to be those of a young white male. That gruesome find was made at Mud Springs Draw, almost in sight of the old mine along the Yellowstone. Not wanting to become involved in a long drawn-out investigation which would ruin his hunting trip, the hunter waited until after his return to California before notifying the Duchesne County Sheriff's Office by telephone. A search was made but to no avail, since fresh snow had fallen in the mountains. That report could have been written off as a hoax, but it wasn't."

Flooded Mine

Gale Rhoades relates the following story of a flooded mine along Yellowstone river in his book "Lost Gold of the Uintah" (pg, 124).

"During the early summer of this year (1987) another important discovery was made on the banks of Yellowstone Creek south of Swift Creek. This discovery was made by Greg and Mike Lowe of Colorado while following old Spanish mine and treasure symbols in that area.

According to Greg Lowe, "a series of Spanish symbols" led them directly to the mine. "It's right near Yellowstone Creek and it's flooded -- half full of water -- due to several old beaver dams which have been constructed there forcing the waste water to back up and flood the mine. There's an old spring above the mine which had, at one time, been diverted by the construction of a small ditch. It's a long ditch and must have taken a lot of time and work for those who built it. I doubt if the mine would have flooded if it weren't for those beaver dams. Still, you can see back into the mine a long way, the top of the mine is not flooded. Someone, in more recent times, had done some digging around the entrance of the mine. "I was talking to an old sheepherder in the area and he said that not too many years ago someone else had found the old mine and that, at that time, there was an old door at the mine entrance which could not be opened. The man left and a short time later returned at night with a backhoe, apparently without permission of the Forest Service, ripped the door away from the mine entrance, and found it flooded. The old sheepherder said that after that incident he never saw the man again."

Could this be the flooded mine? It is south of Swift Creek and right next to the river.

The tunnel was flooded only 20- 30 ft. back. This appears to be a natural cave and there are no apparent signs of mining. Perhaps we need to keep searching for the lost "flooded mine".

Swift Creek
Gale Rhoades published this map he made based on the story that Jack Spencer told him of his discovery near Swift Creek in his book "Lost Gold of the Uintah".

"Lee Anderson and I found an old mine near the junction of Swift Creek and the Yellowstone years ago-we were just kids then; I was 10 or 11 years old at the time. Anyway, we were out of school that day and we were just riding our horses up the Yellowstone (River) having fun, like kids do, and we made camp near an irrigation ditch, or stream, near the Chrystal Ranch, near the power plant there. I remember that we rode on up the Yellowstone to an area where people used to camp and fish, and where Swift Creek dumped into the Yellowstone. There we hiked up the mountain a short way and came to a small clearing.

"Just on the other side of the clearing, near a hill, there appeared to be a small hole-we thought it might be some wild animal's den at first, but after we dug some of the dirt away (it had partially caved in, or the hillside had slid down over it) we could see that it was a small room-like mine. I remember that there were a lot of wild roses growing there and in front of the small ledge. We had to dig some of them away, too, but once we got in the mine we found a lot of stuff. There were a lot of old horse shoes and a home made pick laying around, and the rock inside was white, with black running through it. The black part of the rock would spark when we scraped it, something like the sparks of a grinding wheel. It wasn't gold. To tell the truth I'm not sure what it was!

"We picked up a bunch of the rock and carried it out; most of it we layed by a tree trunk and then went off playing again, but when we came back for it, it was gone. We couldn't find any of it. There was a truck and camper in the area from California, and we think maybe he found the rock and took it with him. But Lee had a piece of it in his pocket which we brought back with us, and which was discarded behind our house in an old bucket.

"Dad (Jack Spencer) was over on Rock Creek prospecting a little and helping his friends dig in the "Wild Bull" mine. This was a mine, or prospect hole, which dad, Clarence Johnson, Charlie Arge and two other fellows were working, and he was quite interested in it. They had been writing to a woman in Canada (who had written to them telling them where to dig, how deep to dig and in what direction to dig) who told them that if they followed her directions, they'd hit it rich. They were told that they would first hit a hard section and then the rich ore. They did hit the hard section but did not hit any ore. After that they dug in all directions. "Anyway, days later, when dad got home and found the white and black rock in the old bucket, he asked us where it came from. We tried several times that summer and also the next summer to find it, but could not. And, I guess that rock was pretty valuable."

Lime Kiln Springs
Gale Rhoades tells the following in his book "Lost Gold of the Uintah".

"To the east of Yellowstone Creek there is a small canyon called Lime Kiln Hollow, so named because of the kiln-like structures located near the mouth of the hollow. There are conflicting arguments as to whether these ancient rock structures were actually built by the early settlers for producing lime from the nearby limestone deposits or by the Spaniards for the smeltering of their gold ore deposits. Certainly, both by design and appearance, they have all the earmarks of Spanish smelters which have been found elsewhere in the Uintahs and some fine looking gold and silver slag has been recovered from their floors. On the other hand, history neglects to reveal any large scale operations by the early settlers to obtain lime from that region.

This is a fascinating area to visit if you can stand the aggravation of attempting to decipher old Spanish mine and treasure symbols. The trees of Lime Kiln Hollow are abundant with these strange but uniformly carved markings." (pg. 124)

This area is covered with symbols, and this one looked to be the most authentic.

One of the old smelters in this area.

Another smelter close to the other.

Yellowstone Cave
Yellowstone Canyon has a lot of hidden holes and caves within its walls to be explored. This one is close to the main road up the canyon and near the flooded mine if you are up for an adventure.

The Old Spanish Trail

2010-11-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

The central route of the Old Spanish Trail, which had to swing north to avoid the impassable Grand and Glen Canyons on the Colorado River, ran northwest from Santa Fe through southwestern Colorado, past the San Juan Mountains, Mancos, and Dove Creek, entering Utah near present day Monticello, Utah. The trail then proceeded north through difficult terrain to Spanish Valley near today's Moab, Utah, where it crossed the difficult and wide Colorado River and then turned northwest to cross the treacherous Green River near present day Green River, Utah. The route then passed through (or around) the San Rafael Swell, the northernmost reach of the Trail. Entering the Great Basin in Utah via Salina Canyon, the trail turned southwest following the Sevier River, Santa Clara River and Virgin River before ascending the Mormon Plateau and hitting the Muddy River in present-day Nevada. From there, it was a 55 miles (89 km) waterless trip crossing southern Nevada to the springs at Las Vegas, Nevada. ... Read more.

The Fed also has a great map showing the trail and other historic trails throughout the US that you can view here: http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/trails/natltrails.pdf

The above map shows the enlarged portion of the trail where it passes through East central Utah and then into Dove Creek Colorado.

The above photo shows the remains of the trail just north of New Castle Utah.

The above photo shows the remains of the trail near Enterprise Utah.

This inscription is was found along the Old Spanish Trail near Paragona, Utah.

While this is the main route through the west for the Spanish, it definitely was not the only route they traveled. Several expeditions ventured further North; one of which was the famous Dominguez, Escalante expedition.

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of 1776 was searching for a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Spanish settlement in Monterey, California. The members of the expedition never reached their destination, turning back in northwestern Utah.

The above plaque is found near the mouth of Spanish Fork Canoyon in Spanish Fork, Utah where father Escalante entered Utah Valley for the first time.

The amulet above was found at Iron Springs West of Cedar City, Utah along the Old Spanish Trail. It is believed to have been from the Donimguez-Escalante Expedition that camped at the spring in 1776.
Photo by Ron Archibald

LaVan Martineau, famous for interpreting petroglyphs, deciphered the following petroglyph about the Dominguez-Escalante expedition.

24. Martineau, 1973, p. 85-91. This petroglyph shows the Indian account of the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition on their way south crossing through what is now Washington Country, Utah. The Indian guides tried to lead them toward the Colorado River Lee's Ferry crossing. But as they reached a narrow portion of a canyon, the Spaniard's horses would not go further. Fearing that they would be blamed, the guides fled to the top of the canyon. The Spanish continued south as they intended, heading toward the impassible Grand Canyon. Note the "deo" (21) and "dei" (22) showing latin words "to God" and "of God" that the Indians drew to show the unusual method of writing that the Spaniards used. Symbol 20 emphasizes the wide canyon trail they eventually took.
25. Martineau, 1973, pp. 95-97. Here is the Navajo oral account of the story:

"The white soldiers came into the land of the Navajo, and sought to make us believe them and go with them to another land. In order to accomplish this they made their camps in our cornfields, piled the corn up, and burned it. They also killed most of our sheep. Instead of submitting to surrender, however, we closed our ears to their words and would not believe them. We relied upon our strength and retreated to a rough canyon (Canyon de Chelly), wherein we could hide and fight. The soldiers entered this canyon in the midst of winter to punish us and make us believe what they said. They had difficulty in passing through the canyon, and some soldiers broke through the ice and hurt (froze) their feet. Those of our people who were in the bottom of the canyon at this time fled to the tops of the cliffs where they could have a better hold, and could fight from above. But we were suffering from hunger and could not fight as effectively as the soldiers below. Thus we showed little resistance. Many of our people who were watching from their hiding placed later left these places to surrender to the soldiers in order to obtain blankets, get food to heal their hunger, and warm themselves by the fires. We thus sought the safety of the soldiers. Those who had made a defiant stand were captured and confined to prison. Those who escaped were pursued. Those who refused to leave the canyon were killed and mutilated. Because of our hunger, the killing of most of our sheep, the war upon the corn, and the pursuit of those who fled, the hand of death was placed in our path. In our weakened condition, and in order to heal our hunger, we surrendered. Thus we left the dangerous path of fighting behind us, and this war upon us and our cornâ€“so harmful to both our land and ourselvesâ€“ended. After our surrender, we journeyed across a large river (Rio Grande). Here some of our people drowned and were carried away by the current. This journey took us to a flat land upon which the soldiers lived and where we were to stay."

http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2006/petroglyphs.html

Nephite Coin?

2010-11-07T13:16:00.001-07:00

The "Nephite Coin" (as depicted in several treasure books) was found 15' below the surface in Salt Lake City and is actually a 'Pice' issued in British India in Bengal by the mint in Calcutta in 1831. Made of copper. How this came to rest in Salt Lake could be an interesting story.

Reference Krause Catalog of World Coins. Page 990-706 E. Value 50 cent to 3.50 depends on condition. Aug 24th 82. by H. F. Campbell. 1982 Edition. Nicholas G. Morgan, Donor.

1642

2010-11-05T13:36:00.000-06:00

This inscription is depicted in many of the Spanish treasure books as proof that the Spaniards have been here for centuries. Unfortunately this one is a fake. It was cut by a man named Burt. It was found carved on a wall of Glen Canyon, upper end of Lake Creek bar in 1938 by the Stone expedition.

Donor & Photog: Charles Kelly.

Rock and Mortar Pestle

2010-11-05T11:06:00.000-06:00

A rock & mortar pestle. The handiwork of early Spanish explorers who were evidently the first to discover gold-bearing deposits in the Henry Mountains. It was found near Straight Creek on the east flank of Mt. Pennell, Two miles above the gold mine operated early in the nineteenth century. The slab is of ignious rock into which the mortar grooove was cut approx. 1x3 feet and the groove is about 4 inches wide and approx. 4 inches deep in the center of the sloping cut. The hand powered pestle was pushed through the groove in the mortar by inserting the thumbs in the end holes with the fingers firmly grasping the ends of the pestle.

Owned by Mr. Kay Hunt. Photo gift of Walter B. Coltam.

Digital Image © 2008 Utah State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved.