Back through the mid '60s (we moved to Phoenix in 1959 to a house on Glen Dr. about a mile off the West side of Squaw Peak) my father started looking for the Dutchman's gold. He got started from panning dust out of our backyard dirt (Phoenix irrigation comes from the Salt River which flowed into two major canals {one of them close by the house} originally used by the Navajoes before they were pushed out.) which led him to the Legend. For about 5 years (weekends, holidays & summer vacation) my dad, mom, sister and I crawled canyons, mesas and everything in-between in the Superstitions.
It was towards the end of that five year period that we found a mining pan and remains of a smelter in a small cleft/cave about 8' deep (maybe remains of a seam?) on the south side of a Mesa, which my dad sent to the San Diego Museum for authentication. They both identified these as being Spanish in origin, dated around the mid-1500s; along with a thank you for our "donation". [He was not happy about that and sent letters which were not answered.] They were in a display case when we visited California a year or so later.
We always entered the area by way of the Apache Trail, turning off on a small dirt track where hunter's (deer and javelina) often parked and the mesa was a fair walk from there; from the North end of the mesa in the canyon on the west side from where the artifacts were found you could see the Salt River (the west side had a hollow in the cliff about mid-way {just above the scree}, I remember that because I was the first to reach it and there was a ledge therein with about 8 or so Diamondbacks "resting" on it, my mom freaked out): from the top of the same end you could make out the dam. The cave/cleft was on the South (lots of Cholla cactus on East side canyon) end of the Mesa, east side canyon, where the scree met the mountain. From the top of the South end was the markers my Dad said matched his "research" and pointed into the canyon now covered by the Lake. This find (the "markers") was the end of the 5 years of hunting which was based upon his examination of materials available (published materials pre-1966), talks with locals in Apache Junction, and confirmation with our "boots on the ground". While a great deal of the "search" was just us, I do recall multiple times when others went out with us*.
(*Note: Friends of my folks, I remember that one of them owned and flew a gyro-copter. The reason I remember that {and is partially relevant} was, on a visit to his home while the adults were inside and the kids were banished to the outside, I found a chunk of white quartz around an inch or so in his locally crushed, rock driveway, with a spider vein of gold in it which I used as an excuse to go inside {Phoenix in the summer}. This in turn produced six adults on their hands and knees in the driveway for the rest of the day, where one other piece was found about the same size. Mixed rock, not all quartz.)
I'll probably remember more when I review more of the Dutchman's material because we started when I was about 7 yrs old. [What I've added here to my original post is about the extent of what I remember relevant to this topic.]
Has anyone else heard of that particular site/location?
