Santa Lucia Lost Mine

froggy said:
The Santa Lucia Lost Mine and a store of rich gold ore and bars worth $5 million are located in the Table Mountains.

Neer Pusch Ridge, Santa Catalina Mountain

Help if you can!
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Table Mountains?

Pusch Ridge?

Gold Bars?

I'll go get that no problem!
 

Mountain range in Pima and Pinal Counties, Arizona

The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains or the Catalinas, are located north, and northeast of Tucson, Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter.

Highest point: Mount Lemmon
Country: United States of America

[FONT=&quot]Mountains: Mount Lemmon, Mount Bigelow, Thimble Peak, Pusch Peak[/FONT]
 

Froggy,
Have you read this book
The Lost Legends and History of the Catalina Mountains, I might even pick up a copy looks like a fascinating read
61hufyZ4fUL._SX348_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
here is the link
ref=as_li_tl
 

Ok let's talk about the Iron Door mine and others. The mines would need to be roughly between 2-3 miles from where a place to raise crops to feed the miners, most likely with a mission for the priests. So it becomes a question of where can they grow crops. Either fairly level land with water (or was water as the water table has dropped) or where they could have terraces to plant and raise crops, again with water near by. The locations for this are fairly limited in Arizona. Even in the Catalina Mountains. First find where they could raise crops then expand outward to find the mission (should be close by) and then again expand outward for the mine. Mining without crops is not a long term, 2-3 year, as the game animals will be used up or leave the area. That is why most tribes were gatherer hunters, and migrated seasonally to different locations. The Navaho, Hopi, and Pima were farmers first, warriors second. I have heard of none of those as miners by the Jesuits.
 

audigger53 said:
Ok let's talk about the Iron Door mine and others. The mines would need to be roughly between 2-3 miles from where a place to raise crops to feed the miners, most likely with a mission for the priests. So it becomes a question of where can they grow crops. Either fairly level land with water (or was water as the water table has dropped) or where they could have terraces to plant and raise crops, again with water near by. The locations for this are fairly limited in Arizona. Even in the Catalina Mountains. First find where they could raise crops then expand outward to find the mission (should be close by) and then again expand outward for the mine. Mining without crops is not a long term, 2-3 year, as the game animals will be used up or leave the area. That is why most tribes were gatherer hunters, and migrated seasonally to different locations. The Navaho, Hopi, and Pima were farmers first, warriors second. I have heard of none of those as miners by the Jesuits.
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Have to agree with your logic in part, and disagree in part. The missions were farming in rather large scale, and one of the activities the missions were supposedly doing was providing food for miners. Also the Pima were friendly and were good farmers, so it would have been possible to trade for food with the friendly Indians. Water however for the men and animals as well as for processing ore (whether placer or lode) would have been vital, so while it makes sense that the Iron Door mine should be near a source of water, even this is not necessarily the case. They may have been packing the ore to the water, which is why they found arrastras along the Salt river, when there were no mines near by. Water for the men and animals may have been packed in. Or, they may have dug a well for drinking water, which would be a good clue to find. Now that I think about that point, heck several of the famous old Spanish mines, had a hand dug well or spring very near by. (the Sheep Hole mountains mine is one such example)

Please do continue, did not intend to start an argument over that point just thought it MAY be possible that the miners were obtaining food from the missions or friendly Indians or both. Also there were a number of Spanish Rancherias in Arizona prior to the 1751 Pima revolt, which also would be places where beef, sheep etc could be traded for.

:coffee2: :coffee2:
 

The water table used to be much higher. Pete Kitchen's Ranch was photo graphed and showed pine trees around it. Now it is all scrub desert. The Iron Door mine, I thought was supposed to be a Jesuit mine, not Spanish. With the converted Indians working the mine, "For the Glory of God", as were most if not all of the Jesuit mines. Maybe I am wrong about that, would love to hear differently as I can't see the priest working in the mines when they could use local labor instead. Sheep were not that common back then. The Basques came later. I'm thinking of time frame 1560's(?) or when Kino came through, to 1767. Pima Indians were "Friendly" because they wanted allies against the Apaches and the Papagos, that they were at war with because of raids on them(1880's). Florence where I went to HS was only 9 miles from the Pima Reservation, now part of the Salt River Reservation. Your still talking 55-60 miles from there to the Catalinas, for transporting food for mining there. What would they trade them for the food? Gold or Silver? I don't think so. Those went back to Mexico for shipment to Spain (Jesuit).
 

audigger53 said:
The water table used to be much higher. Pete Kitchen's Ranch was photo graphed and showed pine trees around it. Now it is all scrub desert. The Iron Door mine, I thought was supposed to be a Jesuit mine, not Spanish. With the converted Indians working the mine, "For the Glory of God", as were most if not all of the Jesuit mines. Maybe I am wrong about that, would love to hear differently as I can't see the priest working in the mines when they could use local labor instead. Sheep were not that common back then. The Basques came later. I'm thinking of time frame 1560's(?) or when Kino came through, to 1767. Pima Indians were "Friendly" because they wanted allies against the Apaches and the Papagos, that they were at war with because of raids on them(1880's). Florence where I went to HS was only 9 miles from the Pima Reservation, now part of the Salt River Reservation. Your still talking 55-60 miles from there to the Catalinas, for transporting food for mining there. What would they trade them for the food? Gold or Silver? I don't think so. Those went back to Mexico for shipment to Spain (Jesuit).
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The mine owners were Hacienda owners. The only time they used the Jesuits was for hiding the mine entrance. They had ( The Hacienda owners) a gold mining operation ongoing near Kearny along the San Pedro river as the rivers were back then the life blood of the Pima. Also evidenced by the Manji Mission mine Hacienda complex (Kino's Traveling Protector) too the east of Kearny along the Pedro River. The Mine with the Iron Door was nearer to the Pedro River than Tucson. The Catalina mountains supplied food from Deer and Bear. Springs were important as they couldn't be contaminated like well's could be by the Apache. I heard the Spanish could hide a well so not even an animal could find it. Water was important so the created catch ponds near the mines for seasonal mining during the rainy season. A lot of the cattle ponds you see today are from back then made by the Spanish using Indian labor. East of the Pedro was Apache country and they always had trouble in that respect so they used the Pima's for protection because they hated the lazy Apache that raided for food and never cultivated. The Apache pretty much raided for everything and were marauders killing for basic lively hood. The camping areas or Royal campsites were always up high and had springs as a water source. This gave the miners some immediate protection from raids using high ground as a deterrent against the raids. But as in the instance of the Iron Door Mine legend it sometimes did no good as they were slaughtered in the mountains near the mine or mines. The Legend states the whole party and mission was wiped from existence by the Apache with the mission taken apart piece by piece and scattered all over the place. An old Padre told Don Page the story back in the 40's - 50's how the smoke from the raid could be seen for miles and by the time help got there it was all but gone and only dead bodies remained tortured, mutilated, and killed for mining and building in the sacred Apache mountain home of the Thunder Gods. only a small portion of the missions complex foundation remained and was found by Mr Page using the directions from the old Priest.
 

sorry man... couldn't resist. :) the spanish were expert steel workers since at least the 6th century B.C. toledo steel was the best steel on earth for more than a millennium. i'll bet they made the door out of scrap. heat the steel to bright cherry and pound away. check out this video.



as you can see, they can make steel bars with a hammer, anvil and forge out of scrap pieces or even meteorites.

on a side note, the strength of the steel is in the number of layers (folding the steel in the video). 1st fold gives 2 layers; 2nd 4; 3rd 8, etc. i read that ancient samurai swords can be 40,000 layers.
 

Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp said:
Escuse me my friends, but first, just where the :censored: did they get this iron door in the first place ?? I need coffee :coffee2:
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The Mine with the Iron Door was just a metaphor. They used a horse shoe as the symbol for the mine. Hence the name "Iron Door" as horse shoe's were made from iron. Iron was too precious of a commodity to make a huge door out of and carry it high in the mountain's it would've taken to much Indian power.

Iron as a word to the Indian whom knew no such word before the Spanish came over here, took that word to mean "A heavy Load" or "Words spoken with Iron" as in "Honesty and Strength". So that being said it may have been the Indians talking about the mine after it was sealed with a death trap that fell on you when you attempted to open it. A heavy load on your head or an iron door of rock that falls down from above smashing many men like an iron door of boulders. It is an attempt to explain a mine death trap by the natives.

The rest of the timber and mine shoring material, nails, buckets, and hardware all came from the Hacienda Depot. Food came from the Iron Door Mine restaurant on top of Mt Lemmon (Which they had established) and they bought clothing from JC Geronimo's.
 

froggy said:
Water from the Canada Del Oro Agua Distrito
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Ya, It brings out the Frogs....Canyon of Gold District Water trickles down and it came from the iron door mine...rusty Iron door I would assume. The Mine could be a spring? Or, possibly it may be a water fall...seems logical.
 

froggy said:
[FONT=&quot]The Santa Lucia Lost Mine and a store of rich gold ore and bars worth $5 million are located in the Table Mountains.

Neer Pusch Ridge, Santa Catalina Mountain[/FONT]

Help if you can!
Click to expand...
Did you try to locate it yet? Did you have any success finding anything?
 

Although this forum topic is old, I enjoy exploring the slopes of the Catalinas. I know of one spring on a bench up the west slopes of the Catalinas. The spring is in an odd location on higher ground with no other water nearby, but at a flat spot that is a good camp site. It did not occur to me that it could be water from a tunnel outflow. There was no tunnel to be seen. I'm going to go back and inspect the area more closely.
 

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