The mysterious death of Adolph Ruth

[Treasure_Hunter]

Gentleman please post by the rules, "----", isn't going to work.

 

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[Matthew Roberts]

hahahaha!

Are you really saying there's no Laurel trees in Arizona?

If I can find and post a picture of a laurel tree in Arizona, will you agree to self-ban for one year?

deducer,
Of course there are laurel trees in Arizona, at least two varities if not more.
It was the Maricopa Sheriff's that noted the Laurel trees, not me.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Sloppy research. It's not that hard to look up.

There are two Lauraceae (Laurel) trees native to the United States. Neither are native to Arizona. I've known that since the 1970's which is why I asked:

Did Ruth plant them there?

Lauraceae Umbellularia californica (California Bay Laurel) native to California and Southwest Oregon.

Lauraceae Sassafras albidum (Eastern Sassafras) native to eastern North America.

​

 

[Matthew Roberts]

C Diggins

You need to call the Maricopa County Sheriff and tell them they lied about the Laurel trees.
Hopefully someone there will be able to give you some kind of satisfaction.
Good luck.

 

[robertk]

I don’t see why ya’ll are arguing. There are several explanations that don’t involve any lying sheriffs. Simplest is that they’re referring to a mountain laurel.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

I don’t see why ya’ll are arguing. There are several explanations that don’t involve any lying sheriffs. Simplest is that they’re referring to a mountain laurel.

You are right robertk, it's ridiculous to make an issue of the type of tree a Sheriff's deputy thought it was. If that's all someone gets from the post they are simply looking for something to argue about.

 

[Clay Diggins]

No argument, just fact.

I don't even know why the Sherrif is involved. I was simply questioning Matthew's statement there was a grove of Laurel trees. Matthew was the one that made statement in his post and then pointed to the Sheriff in a later post. I haven't had anything to say about a Sheriff. Trying to make out like I said the Sheriff is a liar is juvenile storytelling.. Anyone with the ability to read knows otherwise.

And no - Texas Mountain Laurel is not a Laurel tree and it's not native to Arizona.

Seems the real question is why would someone plant Laurel tress on a volcanic mesa in the middle of nowhere? It makes no sense. I'm pretty sure no one who has been up there saw any Laurel trees. If someone has seen a grove of Laurel trees maybe they can shed some light on this silliness.

 

[deducer]

Sloppy research. It's not that hard to look up.

There are two Lauraceae (Laurel) trees native to the United States. Neither are native to Arizona. I've known that since the 1970's which is why I asked:

Did Ruth plant them there?

Lauraceae Umbellularia californica (California Bay Laurel) native to California and Southwest Oregon.

Lauraceae Sassafras albidum (Eastern Sassafras) native to eastern North America.

​

lol... nice try, internet botantist.

First, a plant or tree doesn't have to be native to Arizona to end up in Arizona. Both species you refer to can be found all over the Southwest.

And yes, a Desert Mountain Laurel is a Laurel, because the name Laurel is used, and that is probably what the Sheriff was simply doing. Once again you're trying to drag science into this by arguing that a DML isn't from the Lauracae family.

I'm pretty sure the sheriff didn't give a damn about that last little bit of scientific detail.

 

[deducer]

You are right robertk, it's ridiculous to make an issue of the type of tree a Sheriff's deputy thought it was. If that's all someone gets from the post they are simply looking for something to argue about.

You are absolutely correct that Clay isn't here to discuss facts. He's not even interested in the Superstitions in the slightest bit. He is only here to try and dominate with what he thinks is an overpowering intellect.

As they say, it's the empty barrel that makes the most noise.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Laurel trees grow in Arizona, doesn't matter if they are native or not. Now please move on and stop looking for silly reasons to argue.

 

[Clay Diggins]

lol... nice try, internet botantist.

First, a plant or tree doesn't have to be native to Arizona to end up in Arizona. Both species you refer to can be found all over the Southwest.

And yes, a Desert Mountain Laurel is a Laurel, because the name Laurel is used, and that is probably what the Sheriff was simply doing. Once again you're trying to drag science into this by arguing that a DML isn't from the Lauracae family.

I'm pretty sure the sheriff didn't give a damn about that last little bit of scientific detail.

I'm not a botanist (whatever that is) but I do have a degree in horticulture. No internet needed.

I don't know that the Sheriff wrote anything about a Laurel grove on the mesa. It's not really relevant who said it originally. I never questioned the Sheriff's writing on the photo but I've never seen that writing. You seem to think this is about the Sheriff lying? Is that why you keep bringing up the Sheriff? If you think he was lying why not just start a thread on that? I don't have any interest in questioning the Sheriffs' knowledge or intent and I don't see why it's become a subject in this thread.

What I don't understand is this is a thread about the "mysterious death of Adolph Ruth" yet when a clue stares you in the face you deny it's relevant. What's that about?

Look again. Here's your clue:

IF there is a grove of laurels above Ruth's camp they were without a doubt imported and planted by modern humans. (Laurels are not native to Arizona)

Now the obvious question would be "why was Adolph Ruth camped in a grove of trees planted more than 20 years before? Did he know the people who came to tend and water these trees? Did he think Waltz planted and cared for them?

Neither of the American Laurels or even the bean plant known as "Texas Mountain Laurel" will grow in the Superstitions without a reliable source of water. Willow springs is not a reliable source of water and according to Matthews account the grove was uphill from the camp above the local water source. You can see how dry it is in the photo Matthew posted.

So who planted and cared for the grove of Laurel trees? Did Ruth think the treasure was buried there?

The fact is that nobody here knows the answer to that question. Why? Have you or anyone you know ever been to the Laurel grove? Has anyone here ever been to Adolph Ruth's camp? I know I've been near that location in the past but I wasn't looking for the Ruth camp and I never saw a grove or even one Laurel tree. It's a small area but it's certainly big enough to miss where someone camped 90 years ago.

My best guess is that the Sheriff report I've read is correct. The Sheriff reported Ruth's camp was at Willow springs where there is a single willow tree. I have been there more than once (bush whacking territory) there are no Laurels and no grove. I doubt that particular willow tree was there in 1930, and that desert willow was not uphill from the camp as Matthew wrote about the grove of Laurels. Whatever supposedly was written on the photo contradicts that = clue.

Maybe Matthew will share the actual writing on the photograph. Or maybe one of the intrepid treasure hunters here will put boots on the ground, do the work, visit the site and give us their report. Then you could compare my report and theirs and prove the Sheriff was lying in your new thread on that subject if that's your thing.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

I've been on Peters Mesa many times to that very spot. Alone sometimes and also with Greg Davis, Jack Carlson, Bob Corbin and a few others.
I guided Bob Corbin there when he wanted to see Walt Gasslers camp and the place on the Mesa where the photo was taken and the place Gassler said Tex Barkley found Adolph Ruth dead.

Greg and I have a photo of that rock that was taken at that exact spot matching the 1931 photo.

Yes there is a grove of trees not far from that rock with the sheet over it.
I don't know if they are laurel or not and don't care ! It's irrelevant !

The tree grove is quite large and in fact there are three of them on the west side of Peters Mesa. Greg Davis can verify they are there and quite large. Walt Gassler made his camp in one of them.

Nobody cares if the trees are laurel or not !!!

Photo is of Bob and I not far from the rock with Weavers Needle in the background.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Nobody cares if the trees are laurel or not !!!

According to your account the Sheriff cared enough to note the type of tree. You cared enough to repeat it in your post.

Sure would like to know the location of that grove above Willow Spring is. It obviously had been removed by person or persons unknown when I traveled there.

I don't know why it would matter whether there are groves on Peters Mesa? The Willow Springs location is 3 major canyons/mountains and 3-4 miles away from Peters Mesa.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

The Maricopa County Sheriff investigating the missing persons case of Adolph Ruth obviously had reason to believe Ruth had at one time been at the site on Peters Mesa. The air search used the sheet covered rock as its ground orientation.

Having been on the site and with everything I have read and seen its my opinion there was a good chance Adolph Ruth had been at that site.

 

[coazon de oro]

I'm not a botanist (whatever that is) but I do have a degree in horticulture. No internet needed.

I don't know that the Sheriff wrote anything about a Laurel grove on the mesa. It's not really relevant who said it originally. I never questioned the Sheriff's writing on the photo but I've never seen that writing. You seem to think this is about the Sheriff lying? Is that why you keep bringing up the Sheriff? If you think he was lying why not just start a thread on that? I don't have any interest in questioning the Sheriffs' knowledge or intent and I don't see why it's become a subject in this thread.

What I don't understand is this is a thread about the "mysterious death of Adolph Ruth" yet when a clue stares you in the face you deny it's relevant. What's that about?

Look again. Here's your clue:

IF there is a grove of laurels above Ruth's camp they were without a doubt imported and planted by modern humans. (Laurels are not native to Arizona)

Now the obvious question would be "why was Adolph Ruth camped in a grove of trees planted more than 20 years before? Did he know the people who came to tend and water these trees? Did he think Waltz planted and cared for them?

Neither of the American Laurels or even the bean plant known as "Texas Mountain Laurel" will grow in the Superstitions without a reliable source of water. Willow springs is not a reliable source of water and according to Matthews account the grove was uphill from the camp above the local water source. You can see how dry it is in the photo Matthew posted.

So who planted and cared for the grove of Laurel trees? Did Ruth think the treasure was buried there?

The fact is that nobody here knows the answer to that question. Why? Have you or anyone you know ever been to the Laurel grove? Has anyone here ever been to Adolph Ruth's camp? I know I've been near that location in the past but I wasn't looking for the Ruth camp and I never saw a grove or even one Laurel tree. It's a small area but it's certainly big enough to miss where someone camped 90 years ago.

My best guess is that the Sheriff report I've read is correct. The Sheriff reported Ruth's camp was at Willow springs where there is a single willow tree. I have been there more than once (bush whacking territory) there are no Laurels and no grove. I doubt that particular willow tree was there in 1930, and that desert willow was not uphill from the camp as Matthew wrote about the grove of Laurels. Whatever supposedly was written on the photo contradicts that = clue.

Maybe Matthew will share the actual writing on the photograph. Or maybe one of the intrepid treasure hunters here will put boots on the ground, do the work, visit the site and give us their report. Then you could compare my report and theirs and prove the Sheriff was lying in your new thread on that subject if that's your thing.

Howdy Clay,

You read the Sherriff's report right. Ruth had his supplies packed to Willow Springs, this was his original camp. You are just getting it mixed with his last camp, as noted by the Sherriff, which was on the Northwest end of Peter's Mesa.

Homar

 

[sdcfia]

Non-native trees in surprising locations can a subtle location marker. Much more subtle than rock carvings, cairns, terrain descriptions, triangulation points, et al, which can be "clues", yes, but can also be intentionally disinformative. It all depends on the cleverness of who's leaving all those "clues".

 

[Matthew Roberts]

In January of 1932, Jeff Adam's, Tex Barkley, Hosea Cline, Gabriel Robles and Asa Gardner found the remains of Adolph Ruth at the NE end of Black Top Mesa.

On January 13, 1932 Jim Bark wrote a letter to Sims Ely detailing a conversation he just had with Jeff Adam's about the finding of Ruth's remains.

Bark wrote to Ely that Jeff Adam's told him they had found a paper with Ruth's remains. That paper had directions to a mine. Adam's and the other four men immediately set out to try and follow the directions on that paper.

The following is an excerpt from Barks January 13, 1932 letter to Ely, the part where Adam's told him about finding that paper.

" The map plainly described the Charleboise trail to the top of Peters Mesa, then north to the Black Mountain ( Malapai Mt.) Until you came to the first canyon running east into Peters Canyon, the roughest trail he was ever over. Finally they came to a very large cave. There the map ended the trail and stated that right across the canyon about 250 feet or yards was the mine. The five men had each taken an empty sack to bring back the ore."

Adam's and the others found the cave but did not locate the mine so they returned to Phoenix with Ruth's remains.

It is hard to follow the directions on the map (paper) Adam's and the others found unless you are familiar with Peters Mesa. Some years ago I was able to find the right trail that led to the cave mentioned on the map. Like Adam's and the others from that cave the mine could not be located but as Adam's had told Bark. It was in some of the roughest and remote country in the Superstitions.

In my opinion, Adolph Ruth had been taken to Peters Mesa by person unknown to search for the mine on the map that Jeff Adam's had found with his remains.

 

[deducer]

I'm not a botanist (whatever that is) but I do have a degree in horticulture. No internet needed.

I don't know that the Sheriff wrote anything about a Laurel grove on the mesa. It's not really relevant who said it originally. I never questioned the Sheriff's writing on the photo but I've never seen that writing. You seem to think this is about the Sheriff lying? Is that why you keep bringing up the Sheriff? If you think he was lying why not just start a thread on that? I don't have any interest in questioning the Sheriffs' knowledge or intent and I don't see why it's become a subject in this thread.

What I don't understand is this is a thread about the "mysterious death of Adolph Ruth" yet when a clue stares you in the face you deny it's relevant. What's that about?

Look again. Here's your clue:

IF there is a grove of laurels above Ruth's camp they were without a doubt imported and planted by modern humans. (Laurels are not native to Arizona)

Now the obvious question would be "why was Adolph Ruth camped in a grove of trees planted more than 20 years before? Did he know the people who came to tend and water these trees? Did he think Waltz planted and cared for them?

Neither of the American Laurels or even the bean plant known as "Texas Mountain Laurel" will grow in the Superstitions without a reliable source of water. Willow springs is not a reliable source of water and according to Matthews account the grove was uphill from the camp above the local water source. You can see how dry it is in the photo Matthew posted.

So who planted and cared for the grove of Laurel trees? Did Ruth think the treasure was buried there?

The fact is that nobody here knows the answer to that question. Why? Have you or anyone you know ever been to the Laurel grove? Has anyone here ever been to Adolph Ruth's camp? I know I've been near that location in the past but I wasn't looking for the Ruth camp and I never saw a grove or even one Laurel tree. It's a small area but it's certainly big enough to miss where someone camped 90 years ago.

My best guess is that the Sheriff report I've read is correct. The Sheriff reported Ruth's camp was at Willow springs where there is a single willow tree. I have been there more than once (bush whacking territory) there are no Laurels and no grove. I doubt that particular willow tree was there in 1930, and that desert willow was not uphill from the camp as Matthew wrote about the grove of Laurels. Whatever supposedly was written on the photo contradicts that = clue.

Maybe Matthew will share the actual writing on the photograph. Or maybe one of the intrepid treasure hunters here will put boots on the ground, do the work, visit the site and give us their report. Then you could compare my report and theirs and prove the Sheriff was lying in your new thread on that subject if that's your thing.

Here you go again, putting a whole lot of words in my mouth that simply aren’t there.

It doesn’t matter to me what the sheriff may or may not have said, but I do know for a fact that you don’t know. So here’s the funny thing: you have already made up your mind that no matter what, Roberts is wrong, so you tried to shoot him down on the patently ridiculous notion that “laurel trees” do not exist in Arizona because they aren’t native to Arizona (which is such an internet argument to make). Similar to when you made up your mind that the Stone Maps were fake and then lied about being in possession of a DAI report on the stones.

You are of course wrong on that, but you continue to move the goalposts by invoking all sorts of things, be it “science” to disqualify the TML from being called a laurel, even though it bears that name!

I’m happy that you have a degree in horticulture (a fancy word for gardening), but that’s still not botany by any stretch, and as it turns out that you are dead wrong on TML requiring a reliable source of water. Its drought tolerance is pretty high (look it up) which also explains why it proliferates in the Southwest.

You also are wrong on your assumptions that the laurels were “without a doubt imported and planted by modern humans.” While modern Anglo-Saxons probably didn’t have much reason for propagating the TML, Native Americans have long used the poisonous red beans of the TML for ceremonial purposes, often in conjunction with the alcoholic drink, mescal, giving it the common name "mescalbean,” a.k.a., the mescal bean cults among the Apache, Comanche, Delaware, Iowa, Kansa, Omaha, Oto, Osage, Pawnee, Ponca, Tonkawa, and Wichita tribes. This goes back hundreds of years, if not more. That’s more than enough of a justification, theoretically if nothing else, for why a bunch of “laurel trees” may have ended up on the Superstitions, intentionally or otherwise. And this isn’t even taking into consideration that flora propagates itself in a wide variety of ways that do not require human intervention.

There are apparently enough TML in Arizona to warrant a warning from the Arizona poison center not to ingest any of the red beans.

But back to the point.. the fact that the words “laurel trees” were used in the context of the whereabouts of Ruth’s last known spot doesn’t mean you get to throw the baby out with the bathwater by saying "laurels aren't native to Arizona."

And that they don’t exist today in that spot isn’t quite the surprise you’re making it out to be because of the number of major wildfires over the years that have dramatically altered the Superstitions.

It’s a shame, really. This would be a far more interesting discussion if you were actually interested in the Superstitions and its histories, and trying to get at some truths, rather than letting your superiority complex get in the way.