Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (88 page)

World-famous treasures like the Lost Dutchman Mine or Jim Bowie's lost silver mine are so well known that they've been searched for by untold thousands of people. Since they haven't been found yet, an amateur's chance of finding them is mighty slim. But then again, anyone can be fortunate. All it takes is a little
more brains, a little more work, or a little more luck than the rest of the treasure seekers.

The most successful treasure hunters have the heart of a Sherlock Holmes but they also carry a metal detector. The less expensive models will find lost coins and watches on a sandy beach, while the better ones can detect masses of metal buried deep under the earth. A detector is a necessity for serious treasure hunting.

Remember—gold, silver, jewels, and money aren't the only valuables lying around waiting to be discovered. Even if that old abandoned mine doesn't have any gold left, it may yield ancient lanterns, vintage guns, or patent medicine bottles. A single old coin can provide a fortune that will last for years. Good luck… and happy hunting.

More than $10 million in gold and jewels from the Aztec monarch's treasury was buried somewhere north of Mexico City to prevent it from being stolen by the Spanish. Best evidence is that it's near either Taos, New Mexico, or Kanab, Utah.

How It Got There:
The Spanish came to the New World to find gold and set about their task with a single-mindedness that would have made Scrooge blush. Rape, pillage, and murder were standard business practices, despite the fact that the vast majority of the Indians they met were friendly and willing to trade huge amounts of gold for small trinkets.

Greed completely conquered common sense, and the Spaniards truly killed the goose that laid the golden egg. Rather than trade peacefully for gold, they enslaved the Indians and forced them to work their own mines, and they stripped sacred temples of their solid-gold ornaments, which they melted down into ingots and shipped back to Spain. (Much of that gold ended up on the ocean floor when the galleons sank in heavy seas.) As a result, the Indians revolted, hid their gold, and fled from their conquerors.

Montezuma's Revenge:
In 1520 the Aztec ruler Montezuma learned that Cortés and his gold-crazed troops were heading toward his capital, now Mexico City. Knowing that there was no hope of peaceful
coexistence with the Spanish, Montezuma immediately stripped his buildings of their gold, silver, and jewels and sent this treasure by caravan to the north, to be buried until the plague of Spaniards had passed. Unfortunately, Montezuma didn't survive the onslaught. There's no record of the treasure ever having been recovered, so it's likely still hidden where it was buried over 450 years ago. The question, of course, is where.

One account says the caravan went 275 leagues north from Mexico City, then turned west into high mountains, where the gold was hidden in a cave in a huge canyon. There's some question of just how long a league is, but the best guess seems to be that the caravan ended up somewhere in the Sierra Madres.

Other versions say the caravan went much farther north, into present-day Arizona, New Mexico, or Utah.

• The July 14, 1876, issue of the Taos
Weekly New Mexican
reported that a young Mexican arrived in town to look for the treasure. Some townspeople went out with him because he seemed to have special knowledge of where to look.

Searching among the rocks in the mountains outside town, he scrambled up a cliff ahead of the rest of the party. After a long silence, he called out that he'd found a cave “filled with gold and lit into the blaze of day with precious stones.” At that moment, according to the newspaper account, a powerful wind blew him off the cliff. He was dashed against the rocks below and didn't live to reveal the location of the cave. No one else has ever found a trace of it.

• Kanab, Utah, came into the story in 1914, when a prospector named Freddie Crystal rode into town. He told a wealthy rancher named Oscar Robinson that he'd researched the Montezuma legend while in Mexico and found an old book that gave him a solid lead. The book had drawings of symbols that Montezuma's men had supposedly inscribed on the rocks in a canyon near Kanab. Crystal figured he could find the treasure…but he needed money.

It was common for a businessman to outfit a prospector under an agreement to share any wealth discovered, so Robinson agreed to do just that. Crystal and his string of packhorses trailed off into the mountains and weren't seen again for eight years.

By 1922 the town had almost forgotten about the prospector.
So they were surprised and excited when he came ambling back out of the mountains saying he'd found the treasure. They got even more excited when he said he needed a lot of help to get it out.

The citizens of Kanab migrated en masse into the mountains with Crystal. There, in a canyon on White Mountain, they found strange symbols carved into the cliffs that matched those found in the book. Nearby was a giant tunnel that had been carefully sealed long ago. The townspeople attacked the tunnel with a zeal that matched that of the original
conquistadors,
but day after day they found nothing. After three months, everyone gave up. Crystal was never seen again.

How to Get There:
Taos is in northern New Mexico, about 60 miles northeast of Santa Fe. Ask local residents to point out Taos Peak. Kanab, Utah, is just north of the Arizona border, on Highway 89, about 90 miles east of Interstate 15. Ask local residents for White Mountain and the canyon with the symbols carved in the rocks.

Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1864–1867) sent at least $5 million in gold, silver, and jewels out of the country when he learned that he was about to be deposed. His men were robbed and killed, and most of the treasure was buried in Castle Gap, Texas.

How It Got There:
During the Civil War, France had ideas about regaining some of its lost New World empire, and as a first step, Napoleon III placed Maximilian, the Austrian archduke, on the Mexican throne. Maximilian had delusions of grandeur, though, and arriving with his entire Austrian fortune, used his position to amass even more.

The foreign ruler was despised by the Mexican peasants, and plots for his overthrow began almost before he arrived. The emperor realized that if he wanted to live, he'd need to find a more agreeable climate. First, though, he wanted to get his wealth out of the country.

It's not easy to be inconspicuous when you're moving gold and jewelry through rural Mexico, but Maximilian had a plan. He had four trusted aides pack all his valuables in 45 flour barrels and sprinkle a layer of flour on top. His aides and faithful peons set out in a caravan for the north and crossed into Texas near El Paso. The caravan now had to contend with the bandits that roamed the lawless
Texas border country. A band of former Confederate soldiers warned the travelers just how dangerous the area was, so Maximilian's men hired the soldiers on the spot as guides and guards.

A few nights later, curiosity got the better of one of the guards. He had to know why a caravan of flour needed so much protection. So while the rest of the camp slept, he discovered the secret. Maximilian's men didn't live to see daylight.

The soldiers knew they'd never get all that gold past the other bandits in the area, so they stuffed their saddlebags with as much as they could carry and buried the rest. There are various versions of just how many soldiers there were and just how they died. It is agreed, however, that none lived to recover their hidden treasure.

Previous Searches:
As one of the men died with a doctor in attendance, he gasped out the story of the buried millions at Castle Gap. The doctor went to search for it many years later but found nothing. None of the landmarks on the map drawn by the dying outlaw matched anything that he could find. Yet it's certain that Maximilian's men were escorting a fabulous treasure and that the treasure has never been seen again.

How to Get There:
By all accounts, the treasure is still hidden somewhere around Castle Gap, high in the King Mountains north of El Paso. Ask in El Paso how to find the gap. Be prepared for hot, dry, dusty mountain country.

A band of Confederate raiders robbed three banks in St. Albans, Vermont, and buried $114,522 in gold and currency somewhere near the Canadian border.

How It Got There:
St. Albans was a sleepy village on October 18, 1864; the townsfolk didn't pay much attention to all the strangers that had appeared during the previous few days. There was a war on and strangers were always coming and going. But that war was much closer than anyone suspected.

As the afternoon wore on, the strangers began moseying over to the village green. Suddenly they formed into three separate groups and converged on the three banks fronting the square. While some of them held the townspeople at gunpoint, the rest cleaned out the banks. In minutes the task was complete, and they
galloped out of town.

Fourteen of the twenty-two were soon arrested in Canada, and St. Albans was amazed to learn that they were Confederate soldiers who had planned to use the loot to stage similar raids on other New England towns. The arrested men had some of the money with them, but $114,522 was missing. The banks offered $10,000 to anyone who could locate the missing gold. There were no takers.

Previous Searches:
After the war, one of the soldiers came back to St. Albans. He didn't say much, but a local farmer secretly followed him as he wandered along the Vermont side of the Canadian border. He was obviously searching for something but seemed confused. At length he left, empty-handed, and was never seen again.

How to Get There:
St. Albans is about 20 miles north of Burlington, Vermont, near Lake Champlain. The soldier's search seems to place the treasure somewhere along the Vermont side of the border near there.

Gold bullion and money totaling $180,000—stolen from a Wells Fargo stagecoach—was thrown into Mud Lake in Idaho by escaping bandits.

How It Got There:
In 1865 a stagecoach bound for Salt Lake City was attacked by the notorious Updike and Guiness gang. Four passengers were killed and the driver knocked unconscious. At least $100,000 in valuables was taken from the wealthy passengers, along with $80,000 in gold bullion from the stage's strongbox.

The driver and the surviving passengers made it to McCammon, Idaho, where they told their story. A posse quickly formed to track the gang. The outlaws got trapped in the murky waters of Mud Lake and knew that they'd never escape with the heavy gold weighing them down. While the posse was still in the rocks above, they saw the robbers throw heavy sacks into the water.

The gang escaped but never returned to the area for the treasure. The posse couldn't pinpoint the exact spot where they had seen the gold dumped, and there's no record that it was ever found.

Previous Searches:
A treasure hunter named B. C. Nettleson and his partner, Orba Duncan, searched the lake for 20 years without
finding a clue. Then in 1901 Duncan came up with three bars of solid gold, which he sold in a nearby town for $25,000. He kept searching but found nothing more. That's all that has ever been found, but local residents are convinced that the gold is still on the muddy lake bottom.

How to Get There:
Mud Lake is in east-central Idaho, in Jefferson County, about 30 miles northwest of Idaho Falls, and about 60 miles north of Pocatello.

Gold coins, bars, and currency worth more than $80,000 were stolen from a train in Marshfield, Indiana. The robbers apparently stashed it nearby and were hanged before they could retrieve it.

How It Got There:
In 1868 a passenger train of the Jefferson, Madison, and Indianapolis Railroad stopped for wood and water at a station in Marshfield. As the crew left the train, some men hidden behind a woodpile leaped out, knocked the fireman and engineer unconscious, uncoupled the passenger cars, and took off with the engine and the baggage car. The empty safes from the baggage car were found in a wooded area 20 miles from Marshfield, but there was no sign of the contents.

A short time later, four members of the same gang were arrested for killing three of their companions. The four prisoners were taken to nearby New Albany for safekeeping, but that night 50 vigilantes rode into town with red bandannas on their faces and demanded to know where the loot was hidden.

With the sheriff and prison guards tied up, they dragged the gang members one by one out of their cells. They were given a choice—their money or their lives. One by one they refused to tell where the gold was buried, and one by one they were hanged. The last man spit defiantly and said, “You'd hang me anyway, so why should I tell?” He was probably right.