I’ve searched for this over the years, but until the old newspaper articles and other information was digitized I didn’t have the location information to narrow down my search and I didn’t really know where or how to begin. I also didn’t and don’t know for certain if it had been found by someone stumbling across it.
I also was cautious to keep my information secret except for a few close friends who knew parts of my story. I’m 71 now and living far enough away it is impractical to continue the search. I figure telling the story my grandmother told me many time over the years maybe someone will and I’d guess I’d like to hear of it if it was found someday and put an ending to it.
My great grandfather “John Juka” immigrated to this country from Croatia in his late teen years, he lived in the southern Sierra’s eventually winding up in Jackson, California. He’d been a gold miner and also owned mining property, I don’t know very much about those years but he’d must have had some success mining eventually becoming and inn keeper he also owned a theater restaurant in Jackson along with the boarding house a 3 story structure with a ball alley in the basement. There was also a ladies boarding house this was a separate structure, ladies boarding houses were brothels. The digital newspaper collection has a lot of small stories about events that happened he was involved in everything in these small towns was news but I’ll try and keep this story short.
His niece later immigrated to the US and moved into the main boarding house meeting a fellow in Jackson they were married. Now the heart of this story. My grandmother was somewhere around 6 or 7 I’m not exactly sure but old enough to keep her facts straight, she remembered playing with jars of gold coins we don’t know how much gold but jars?
My Great grandfather was 31 when he died in 1901 my grandmother witnessed these events, he fell ill shortly after his nieces wedding, several days later my grandmother told me he called my great grandmother to his room, he told her I’m going to die and I need to tell you where I’ve buried my gold. Great grandmother alarmed protested no your not, the baby my grandmothers brother was crying in another room and she rushed to check on him, returning to my great grandfather she found he had passed.
The family searched to no avail it was never located. Not long after the niece and her new husband packed up and moved to Los Angeles, the niece had gold she brought with her from the old country and they had gold coins my great grandfather gave them as a wedding present. Arriving in Los Angeles the new husband asked for the gold saying he was going to secure a residence and would return as soon as possible, he never returned. The newspaper recounts the story and a search was made fearing he ran into trouble but he had vanished. Other newspaper articles tell of him moving to Arizona and buying a gold mine.
Jackson newspaper articles tell of my great grandfathers death attributing his illness as liver disease, I believe the nieces new husband used strychnine and was after all the gold.
The boarding house was located on Broadway near the gas works, the property now the parking lot for Bank of America.
When the saddle ridge hoard was found I explored the area looking for and area that had a ridge and had a saddle. Eventually I located and area not to far from the boarding house located behind some homes east over highway 88 below a small hospital. This was a small kind of a ridge and it looks like a saddle a little bit, there is also a walking path that follows behind the homes bordering the path. I also found a large oak tree there were a number of shallow open holes around this tree, Denny knew of my story and found this same tree years later he noticed a large old burn mark on this tree, the holes now filled in.
I tried contacting the dealer that handled the coins sale but he would never take my calls, I asked the reporter Kevin Fagen for help, he said the dealer told him it wasn’t Jackson, but I’d doubt the dealer would be honest.
That’s my story, I’ve no idea if the treasure was found or not, but the area matches their story. The property the tree was on is owned by the Slovic Church. Now the couple said they found the coins on their property and hid them in a wood pile in the back yard? This never made any sense to me you’d only do what the couple did if you were afraid someone had seen you digging the gold coins up on someone’s else’s property, the church?
Of course the coins could be buried anywhere within the town of Jackson, I don’t know where but someplace away from town and prying eyes.
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