Let's Go On A Treasure Hunt...!

Some legends are just meant to remain a mystery!

There has always been stories of the Lost Dutchman mine as long as I can remember. Many folks have attempted to find it and nearly all such attempts have ended in failure! Quite a tale of the lost mine and it's history, as I'm sure you will see in this story!

The Lost Dutchman Mine

Somewhere in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, located east of Phoenix, Arizona there is reputed to be a gold mine so rich that if the walls are tapped with a hammer, nuggets of gold come tumbling down. The mine was supposedly discovered by the Apache who kept it a closely guarded secret until finally revealing it to select few of the first Spanish monks who reached Arizona from the colonies in Mexico. It is known locally as ‘The Dutchmen’s Mine’ because two of the many 19th century claimants were thought to be from Holland. Jacob Waltz and Jacob Weiser were two German explorers who rescued a Don Miguel Peralta from a brawl in the Mexican town of Arizpe. Don Miguel told his rescuers about a secret family mine that one of his relatives had staked the claim for in 1748. The party of three left for Arizona with the Peralta family map and found the Peralta family mine shortly thereafter. The three men picked up $60,000 worth of gold. Don Miguel sold the map and the title to the mine to the Germans for their half of the proceeds. The two Germans continued to work the mine over the next 2 decades, but then disaster finally struck. Waltz came back to the camp one evening after camping near the mine to find Weiser had disappeared, on the ground was a blood-stained shirt and Apache arrows.

In 1880 the mine was again discovered, by chance. The discoverers were two young US soldiers who appeared in the town of Pinal with their saddlebags full of gold. They said that the ore came from a funnel-shaped mine in a canyon near a sharp pinnacle of rock. When they did not return from a second venture to the mine, a search party was dispatched. They found the bodies of the two soldiers who were both shot dead. Over time much of the stories surrounding the mine have succumbed to legend and embellishment now that there exists many variations on the tales. Currently the area is a State park, Lost Dutchman State Park. Mining is prohibited, but that doesn’t stop the 8000 people every year who come to search for the lost gold.

Well, I've given you the map, so let's get a fresh cup pf coffee and sit on the patio. We can study the map to the gold together!