gollum
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- Jan 2, 2006
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Superstition Mountain and the Search for Pancho Villa's Lost Rifles!!!
On a tip from another poster, I heard a story about a local mountain in SoCal. The story as I understand it goes like this:
There is a mountain in the desert West of Brawley, Ca. It is named Superstition Mountain. Around the turn of the century (the last one, not the current one ;-), A local rancher with land that encompassed part of the mountain, made a deal with Pancho Villa to sell him a quantity of weapons. The Rancher, on good faith, went ahead and purchased the weapons. When Villa had trouble getting the money, the rancher smelled a skunk. He took the weapons and hid them on Superstition Mountain (the exact description of the location witheld...for now). this is where the story gets a little vague, but for some reason, the deal never went through, and the weapons were never recovered.
Moving forward in time, we are now in the early 1940's. The United States Government, using their power of Eminent Domain, grabs all this land to use it for a Naval Gunnery and Bombardment Range, making it off limits to any non-military personnel.
Moving forward in time again, we now go to the 1960's. A wealthy neighbor of the storyteller hears the story and decides to go look for himself. He took his motorcycle out there. He found the shallow cave that was covered by boulders, and being a rather large gentleman, couldn't get all the way in back of the boulders. He did, however manage to get far enough back to reach in and get one pistol. He came back and waved the pistol around telling everybody the story. He, being wealthy, and old rifles and pistols not holding near the value they do today, decided not to go back and try to get the remaining weapons. My story source says that as a kid, on occasion, his family would pass the area on Highway 86. Somewhere along this route, his father would point out to him where these rifles were with binoculars. Before my source was old enough to go all the way out there by himself, they moved far away.
Today, these rifles and pistols would be worth $8k-$50k apiece, depending on condition and exact models.
Here is where I come into the picture. After reading some of my posts, and seeing that I live in Southern California, he tells me the story, and asked if I was interested in going to look. I'm always up for a good story, and he seemed knowledgeable about locations, names and whatnot. This gave me some confidence that I wouldn't be going on a wild goose chase.
I went out there once a couple of weeks ago and after driving 180 miles, find that the bombing range was in use and access was blocked. Quite the bummer! I called BLM and found a way in. The only problem was that the only way in only went as far as the South Side of the mountain. I needed to be on the other side.
Saturday morning, a friend of mine and I went out there and drove as close as we could to where we wanted to be. Being too far, and it being 90 degrees by 10AM, we made the decision to drive around to the North Side. We figured if the military didn't want us there, they would send somebody out to let us know. There are three radar towers on the three peaks of the mountain. We cut trails over the hardpan. About the time we get closer to the North Side, a pair of A6 Intruder Attack Aircraft flew low overhead on a bombong run. A little frightening if they released their loads early. For the most part, we stayed on the safe side of the signs warning of the danger of all the unexploded ordinance in the area (see the first pic). We saw lots of old practice bombs (blue), twisted and half buried in the sand. They aren't very powerful, but would blow a wheel off (kind of hard explaining to AAA why you need a tow from out there;-). The scary thing is not what you can see though. Since this has been a bombing range for almost 60 years most of the high performance unexploded ordinance would be underground and out of sight(I didn't mention this fact to my friend)! We made it around to the North side without incident (WHEW)! When you look at the mountain from a little distance, it looks sand covered. When you get closer, the rock formations start making themselves known. Following the instructions given, we hiked and climbed all over the North Side of this mountain. We trudged into every ravine that looked promising. Final Verdict; nothing that very closely matches the description of where these little beauties should be buried.
We figured memories may change somewhat over the years, and things may have changed somewhat. I am posting this thread so my story source can review the pictures to see if anything looked familiar. If you spot something, PM me.
Enjoy-Mike
On a tip from another poster, I heard a story about a local mountain in SoCal. The story as I understand it goes like this:
There is a mountain in the desert West of Brawley, Ca. It is named Superstition Mountain. Around the turn of the century (the last one, not the current one ;-), A local rancher with land that encompassed part of the mountain, made a deal with Pancho Villa to sell him a quantity of weapons. The Rancher, on good faith, went ahead and purchased the weapons. When Villa had trouble getting the money, the rancher smelled a skunk. He took the weapons and hid them on Superstition Mountain (the exact description of the location witheld...for now). this is where the story gets a little vague, but for some reason, the deal never went through, and the weapons were never recovered.
Moving forward in time, we are now in the early 1940's. The United States Government, using their power of Eminent Domain, grabs all this land to use it for a Naval Gunnery and Bombardment Range, making it off limits to any non-military personnel.
Moving forward in time again, we now go to the 1960's. A wealthy neighbor of the storyteller hears the story and decides to go look for himself. He took his motorcycle out there. He found the shallow cave that was covered by boulders, and being a rather large gentleman, couldn't get all the way in back of the boulders. He did, however manage to get far enough back to reach in and get one pistol. He came back and waved the pistol around telling everybody the story. He, being wealthy, and old rifles and pistols not holding near the value they do today, decided not to go back and try to get the remaining weapons. My story source says that as a kid, on occasion, his family would pass the area on Highway 86. Somewhere along this route, his father would point out to him where these rifles were with binoculars. Before my source was old enough to go all the way out there by himself, they moved far away.
Today, these rifles and pistols would be worth $8k-$50k apiece, depending on condition and exact models.
Here is where I come into the picture. After reading some of my posts, and seeing that I live in Southern California, he tells me the story, and asked if I was interested in going to look. I'm always up for a good story, and he seemed knowledgeable about locations, names and whatnot. This gave me some confidence that I wouldn't be going on a wild goose chase.
I went out there once a couple of weeks ago and after driving 180 miles, find that the bombing range was in use and access was blocked. Quite the bummer! I called BLM and found a way in. The only problem was that the only way in only went as far as the South Side of the mountain. I needed to be on the other side.
Saturday morning, a friend of mine and I went out there and drove as close as we could to where we wanted to be. Being too far, and it being 90 degrees by 10AM, we made the decision to drive around to the North Side. We figured if the military didn't want us there, they would send somebody out to let us know. There are three radar towers on the three peaks of the mountain. We cut trails over the hardpan. About the time we get closer to the North Side, a pair of A6 Intruder Attack Aircraft flew low overhead on a bombong run. A little frightening if they released their loads early. For the most part, we stayed on the safe side of the signs warning of the danger of all the unexploded ordinance in the area (see the first pic). We saw lots of old practice bombs (blue), twisted and half buried in the sand. They aren't very powerful, but would blow a wheel off (kind of hard explaining to AAA why you need a tow from out there;-). The scary thing is not what you can see though. Since this has been a bombing range for almost 60 years most of the high performance unexploded ordinance would be underground and out of sight(I didn't mention this fact to my friend)! We made it around to the North side without incident (WHEW)! When you look at the mountain from a little distance, it looks sand covered. When you get closer, the rock formations start making themselves known. Following the instructions given, we hiked and climbed all over the North Side of this mountain. We trudged into every ravine that looked promising. Final Verdict; nothing that very closely matches the description of where these little beauties should be buried.
We figured memories may change somewhat over the years, and things may have changed somewhat. I am posting this thread so my story source can review the pictures to see if anything looked familiar. If you spot something, PM me.
Enjoy-Mike
