I wanted to revisit one of the stories regarding the discovery of the stone maps. “Old” (Lynda) called our attention to the story of a highway crew uncovering the stone maps during some roadwork. Lynda took the information from a Bernice McGee magazine article and Somehiker posted relevant images of the article.
The provenance of this particular story doesn’t involve Travis Tumlinson discovering the carvings or does it? To say the least it is confusing to try and tie this story to Travis.
Tracing the provenance of a story, I always ask the question, how did the story reach our ears or eyes?
Since Bernice McGee was the author of the article we might begin from there and try to work our way back.
We have reams of correspondence (the letters are available online) generated by Bernice with various people associated with the stone map story. A problem that sometimes arises is that we don’t have the letters that Bernice wrote.
Bernice wrote 3 articles that were published in various True West Publications (Frontier Times, Old West and True West) beginning in 1964 and ending in 1973.
She collected much of her information through conversations and correspondence with the people in and around the Superstitions. The correspondence takes place over about 13 years (1962 to 1974).
“Are the Peralta Stone Maps a Hoax?” (Published in 1973) (This article along with the other two written by Bernice is also available online and part of the Bernice McGee Collection.)
Returning to the article “Are the Peralta Stone Maps a Hoax?” in which the highway construction crew uncover the maps, we pick up the story there.
While “Doc” Rosecrans is mentioned in that portion of the article that recounts the story, it doesn't appear we can lay the "origin" of the story at his feet. In the preceding paragraph to the one below, Doc appears to be repeating the story that Travis’ discovered the stones, west of Florence Junction.
Bernice writes:
"Doc and we are still plagued by reports we heard long ago, before the Peralta maps were ever made public. At that time, friends who ranch the Superstitions had ask us to help identify several symbols recently found in the area. The pencil-drawn symbols had been copied from some maps that had been “turned up alongside a new lane of Highway being added to 80-60”. The maps were evidently uncovered when graders were working this newly divided highway. Reportedly they were found just east of Queen Creek Bridge, west of Florence Junction. Doc told us that the new strip of road for west bound traffic had already covered where the maps were found.
The penciled symbols meant nothing to us at the time. They were out of context, selected at random, and few in number. Later we recognized the same symbols as part of the Peralta Stone Maps. This report would still place the discovery site near the hill east of the bridge."
The
first item; I would like to try and address is the time frame of this alleged discovery.
“turned up alongside a new lane of Highway being added to 80-60. The maps were evidently uncovered when graders were working this newly divided highway.”
This certainly matches the 1966 time frame for the completion of the twin bridges discussed previously. It also follows the narrative the road work for the divided highway portion had begun earlier and the new bridges were built as the last phase. This is also be supported by the newspaper clipping of the fatal auto accident in 1962. The widening of the road and the bridge approaches was apparently going on during this time period and the narrowing of the lanes to cross the single two lane bridge was a contributing factor to the accident.
Since this time frame doesn’t make any sense for the initial discovery of the stone maps,we may understand the passage;
“Doc and we are still plagued by reports we heard long ago, before the Peralta maps were ever made public.”
About the only way we can make this story work is that some additional artifacts were found, during highway work that were related to the original stone maps in the possession of Travis?
The
second item; Who are the
“friends that ranch in the Superstitions?”
Bernice got the story from Lucille and Floyd (Stoney) Stone who owned the Reavis Ranch.
From a letter Lucille wrote to Bernice on
December 30, 1963;
“In fact there is a man who claims he has found a heart shaped red rock slide west of the Castle Dome (Usually name Sombrero Butte on old maps with the help of a two piece stone map dug up by bulldozers at Queen Creek while widening the highway. He was by and wanted to know about moving a bulldozer over the road to where he wants to build a road to this slide. He had an exact copy of this map (he said) on paper. It was chiseled in regular sandstone with red- sandstone heart inlay over one area of the map and within this heart was a blown up detail of land marks. I will include a couple of the marks from the maps to see if they mean anything.”
On the last page Lucille included a sketch of the dagger and a portion of the mission? symbol.
It appears that when Bernice did become aware of the Stone Maps from Mitchell, she revisited this correspondence and some of the notes on the letters can be attributed to Bernice.
The
third item; Who is the “man” in Lucille’s letter?
If we read the letters exchanged between Bernice and (Doc Rosecrans and Lucille Stone), it become clear that the “man” is Paul J Berndt.
He was a partner of Doc Rosecrans and they were interested in the heart shape rock slide (I think Doc states it was a man made formation). Berndt was trying to get permission to bring a bulldozer in to build a road. In the inital letters Doc refers to the man as Oscar but Lucille Stone later Identifies him
[Letter dated April 19, 1964] as Paul J.Berndt. Doc also mentions the name Berndt in one of his letters although he is still using the name Oscar. (Maybe a nickname for Paul?)
[Letter date July 30. 1966]
Doc was also acquainted with Gene and Ralph Davis (Robert Tumlinson connection) who we learn of in Dr. Glover’s book. There is a photo of Doc and the brothers obtained by Dr. Glover from Gene Davis. Doc also mentions the Davis brothers in his correspondence naming Ralph.
Doc was aware of the stone maps through the Davis brothers and he must have seen them and tried to document at least some of the things that they contained. Since Doc and Berndt were partners, Berndt was surely aware of the maps also.
Berndt was probably trying to curry favor with the Stones and shared some things from the map.
My own take is that Berndt created the highway work story to gain traction with the Stones for his desire to search the red stone heart near Windy Pass. Berndt didn’t want to give too much away but he did need a story of how he came to have the information.
Anyone who has a desire to flesh out this story would do well to read the complete correspondence. Maybe they will come up with a different conclusion.
Did anyone make it all the way through?
Garry
