RG1796 wrote
My honest opinion on this:
Yes - in the past 6 weeks Ive been a member here, I have logged quite a few miles in the SWA. Ive learned a lot.
Did Waltz have a mine? I don't know....
The basis of the story goes something like this, interpreted with a bit of devil's advocate.
1) The Peralta's had mines in the SWA that caught the attention of the Natives that resulted in the extermination of the majority of their family.
The historical Peralta's had a rich gold mine in the Black Canyon area, not anywhere near the Superstitions. There is an old newspaper account of a pair of Peralta brothers whom were attacked by Indians while they were prospecting NEAR the Superstitions, and at the Mormon Stope, several items were found that might have belonged to the Peraltas. There was some evidence of old mining work done at the Black Queen. More on this aspect in a moment.
2) Waltz made friends with one surviving member - was taken to the mine and mined it heavily. (except, it seems his financial lifestyle didn't change to equal the gold he found)
There is no record of Waltz having worked "
heavily" at the mine, and this alleged link to the Peraltas is highly suspect. We will get to that. Waltz's work at his mine could not have been much, for he was never seen selling any gigantic amounts of gold. Large yes, maybe impressive (not for some here of course) but his time spent at the mine was never long. How much mining work can a man accomplish, working alone and with hand tools only, in a few days max? Ever tried to crack some gold out of solid rock using nothing but hand tools? It is not for the faint of heart!
3) Folks claim that Waltz killed people to protect his interests in the mine, perhaps even his nephew.
This is very much unsubstantiated. It is also out of character for Waltz. Does it sound like a homicidal psychopath, whom would sell off his own secret stash of gold (his ONLY form of "social security account" in those days of NO social safety net) to help out a friend in need? There WAS a murder AT Waltz's home, a Mexican whom Waltz claimed had been killed by a second Mexican who then fled the scene. What is fishy about this is that the Mexican had been killed by Waltz's own shotgun, which he explained by saying the fleeing man had "borrowed" it, then shot his pal and fled, leaving the shotgun behind. Sound fishy?
It is a matter of record.
While Waltz may have been kindly to his friends, from statements of people who knew him (we have pretty much nothing direct from Waltz other than his citizenship papers and signature on a petition) he was not someone to screw with, and no one doubted that he could be dangerous. I know half a dozen members here whom will fit that decription as well. Would you try to rob a man that was known to be armed and had lived through the Apache wars as Waltz had? Besides, people DID try to trail him to his mine, unsuccessfully. Most people are not murderers but many might be willing to steal if they can get away with it.
4) Waltz supposedly bailed out Julia Thomas' business, sent his sister hundreds of thousands of dollars - but kept a big bag o' gold under his bed, which was never robbed at gun point. (what did he do with the gold when he left to go mining again? This was, in fact, the wild wild west)
Waltz did not
publicize that he had a gold mine, and lived quite frugally. There was no reason to rob him, plus he had guns and had lived in the wild Arizona frontier days, it would be a risky undertaking to try to rob him. His friend Julia Thomas was in financial trouble and I see no reason to doubt the story of his helping her out. Look at what Julia and Reiney did after Waltz was dead - they went right out to hunt for that mine. If it is all a tall tale, would you sell your business and risk everything to go hunt for a mythical gold mine? Julia did. By the way there was NO "
big bag 'o' gold" under his bed, it was a CANDLE BOX. Ever see a candle box? They are similar to a cigar box. The gold in it amounted to something like forty eight pounds or so, according to Holmes whom sold it off, and used the proceeds to finance his own search for the mine. Would you spend your life hunting for something that you did not believe exists? Plus the gold in that box was gold ORE, not pure gold, so by the only assay done (Holmes had it done) perhaps one third of the weight was actually gold. Based on the stories of people that supposedly saw Waltz making his trips into the mountains, he was never gone that long, and from Reiney we get that Waltz kept most of his gold "stash" buried in small cans and tins around his home. There were no metal detectors in those days, so burying it was a great way to protect it.
4) Waltz gets pnemonia (but doesn't use the gold he found to hire in the best doctors to save / help him) and dies on a deathbed where he gave clues to a woman that eventually changed them all and is now known as a fraudster. Waltz was also buried in a "humble" grave - that doesn't beget the graves of other people that died that were worth a lot of money. The other person that folks claim to be there is the same guy (Holmes) that Waltz supposedly pulled a gun on for following him, but now that he is dying, gave all his clues to his "stalker" - which legend says was totally hammered drunk at the time.
You have skipped the famous flood that pretty well wrecked Waltz's home, his rescue by Reiney and neighbor Starrar; he developed the illness shortly after. The state of the art for medicine in 1891 was not exactly on a par with today, certainly there were fewer antibiotics and some medicines in wide use were actually quite
toxic. I know people alive today whom will not go to a doctor for any reason. Besides, Waltz was then an old man, his home and small farm destroyed, it is quite possible he did not desire to try to start over and rebuild etc especially at his age. Waltz had used up his stash of gold except the candle box in helping Julia, so there was no mass of money/wealth to pay for a rich grave and funeral. The candle box vanished from his room, and both Julia and Reiney claimed that Dick Holmes took it. Holmes claimed he had been given it. Julia may be dismissed as a fraud today, but her own actions certainly indicate that she believed there was a mine and a cache of ore to be found. In fact this would be a great reason for her to NOT give out the true clues or correct directions, much less maps, as she may well have hoped to find it herself one day.
5) If Holmes was there, his son wrote a manuscript about Waltz, which he denies ever writing or knowing anything about. This manuscript suddenly appeared in the ASU library and was published into a book by Thomas Glover.
It is hard to say what the truth is about the Holmes manuscript. However there is no doubt that Dick Holmes spent the rest of his life searching for the mine, followed by his son Brownie and his partner Clay Wurst, right up to this very day.
Actions speak much louder than words, even printed words.
6) The book published by Glover has a lot of great information, if accurate. If it was accurate, The Holmes family sure didn't find the mine - so how accurate was it?
That is making the presumption that the manuscript has to be either 100% accurate or is entirely false. There are multiple possibilities in between - there could very well be errors in the directions, either accidental or deliberate, or it could be in how we are interpreting the terms. Three red hills for instance, does not indicate how the hills are arranged (in a row or triangular?) how large, whether they have brush growing on them or are barren etc. Not to try to attack or diminish that book, but it is just not specific enough to test on a wholly-true/wholly-false basis. After the Lost Dutchman's mine is found, we might be able to check the terrain against the directions in that manuscript and find that it is a perfect match. Until then...?
7) Some stone maps were found on the side of the freeway by a guy on vacation that stopped to relieve himself, that have been critically reviewed. The majority feel they are fraudulent, but there are big proponents into their validity as well. Because they were found in the area close to the SWA - people automatically assume they "must" be in relation to the LDM - but as of today, are unable to be decoded by anyone.
Hmm firstly I have to respectfully disagree about the stones not being "decoded" for they have been repeatedly decoded, in fact we often have a new person arrive here and announce to the world that he (or she) has solved the mystery, pointing out how stupid we all are in not seeing what they have found, etc. The problem is not in the solving of the stones, it is in finding any thing of value by the maps and directions on them. On that score, so far the score is zero. But I do agree, there is not the best argument that the stones even apply to the Superstitions at all, they will fit in at least a half dozen different places around the southwest.
8) Upwards of 10,000+ people have searched the SWA for the mine - and as of today hasn't been publicly announced as being found. (except, there are excuses that maybe it has been found by someone who didn't want to say they found it)
I would say you are being
highly conservative in your estimate of how many people have searched the SWA for the mine. I would venture to guess the true number may well have six zeros behind that first digit. As to the possibility of someone having found it and kept it quiet, human nature is against that. Look at the example with the Pit mine, the folks who mined in it, supposedly were keeping it a secret forever out of fear of prosecution, and yet they could not contain their good fortune and perhaps even that inner desire for recognition was a part. The story "leaked" out and now is debated online. There
was one example of a searcher who did find something, or claimed he did, and allegedly had a piece of ore in his backpack that Tom Kollenborn stated (on national TV) looked to be very much like Waltz's ore. That person was
Walt Gassler, and he was found dead, having made one last visit to the mine. He had notified both Bob Corbin and Tom Kollenborn that he had found the mine at last and wanted one or both to go with him to show them but they were not able to go with him, so the secret died with Gassler.
9) Almost all areas in the South West USA have legends that revolve around Spanish treasure, attacked by the Native's, the Natives buried the treasure only to be found by an "older white male" that claims to have made millions...but then dies shortly there after - to be lost forever.
Without trying to draw you into an argument on this point, I must respectfully disagree and point out that the Spanish explorers really were quite active in searching for mineral wealth, it was in fact the main purpose of their explorations. Not for agricultural lands or timber to harvest. The wars between Europeans and Amerindians raged from the 1500s to the late 1800s, with numerous massacres including cases of NOT lost mines. There is a reason why there are so many legends across the former Spanish southwest, and it is not because of the huge profits to be made in treasure books. The Spanish were shipping whole fleets loaded with silver, gold and jewels from their mining activities in the Americas, including our own southwest.
10) Hundeds - maybe millions, have been made keeping this legend alive. It started with Julia Thomas, who sold her story to Bicknell and published it in the San Francisco Chronicle - which set off one of the biggest treasure legends in the country.
I am not convinced that Julia "sold" her story to Bicknell. Bicknell hunted her up and questioned her, but where is it recorded that he
paid her for that interview? Bicknell did sell his story to the newspapers and it got published and set off the legend of course, but he certainly did not get wealthy for that story either. He was probably lucky if he got a penny per word!
11) A vast majority of people know exactly where the LDM is - because they found it on Google Earth - but have never stepped foot into the state of Arizona, or at a minimum the Superstition Range.
I don't know about this statement. Quite a few people have posted on the treasure forums how they have "Found" the LDM by satellite photos, but I rather doubt this represents a majority of people, however I sense that you are actually just being facetious in this statement.
12) Countless clues are available to search on the internet, that people will say are legitimate clues left by the Dutchman. Most people will align themselves to the clues that best suit their ideas.
That is human nature of course. We sort out clues as we would any mystery, and everyone has a different idea of what the rules should be to do that sorting.
If I missed anything - let me know. But so far, that is what I have learned in the past few weeks.
You have covered a good summation of the situation, yet seem to lack some of the background that can only be covered with a lot of time spent in research. The next part of what I have to say will certainly tick off some people and will likely get me some angry responses and PMs, and it is not really directed at you specifically but at all of our Dutch hunters, amateur and 'pro' alike.
The problem is that we (myself included, for some time) have been searching for a lost mine that is described by a MIX of different stories that are not really related. At least three, possibly five different lost mines have all gotten their details mixed in to the Lost Dutchman story, so that if you try to find that mine, it is both easy and impossible at the same time. Easy because you could find places that will fit some or most of those "clues" yet generally has no gold, and impossible because you are searching for a place that can not exist. If we made up a set of directions to the Silver King mine, and then mixed them with a set of directions to the Vulture, you would then have a similar situation to what we have with the Lost Dutchman story.
Basically the original stories that have gotten mixed together are these:
*The Peralta silver mine, aka the Ludy mine
*The Lost 2 Soldiers mine
*Apache Jack's lost mine
*Jacob Waltz's mine
*The lost Doc Thorne mine
Several others have also almost certainly gotten mixed in, like an obscure "Tayopa" of coarse placer gold on top of a high mesa or butte, a Mexican woman's story that dovetails with that "Tayopa" as she remembered her husband "winnowing" the gold grains by tossing it on a blanket in the wind, a Pima legend of a gold mine and possibly several others like the Black Maverick and lost Pick mine. Why do I say this? Because you can pick out these stories from the mass of Dutchman clues and stories. What you are left with is not nearly so dramatic of course, with no massacres or huge mining platoons trekking the wilderness.
Who or whom is responsible for this confusing mess? Partly it is the fault of treasure hunters, whom hear or read one story and think it is similar to the Dutchman so then make the leap that it MUST be the same mine. Partly it is done innocently, by inexperienced people - Sims Ely for instance was no prospector so did not recognize that the Mexican woman's story was a placer not a lode, nor that the Apache Jack gold which was "spots like stars in the sky" in a BLACK quartz was very unlike the white or slightly rose-tinted quartz we can see in the famous matchbox. The clues to the Apache Jack gold then got directly mixed in with Waltz's story. That is just one example, the 2 Soldiers we can trace to a story that occurred in the Dripping Springs mountains, and a treasure writer may have deliberately "transplanted" the story to add color to an otherwise somewhat dull tale, or perhaps he really believed it was the same. It is even possible that some of the story mixing was done by Waltz himself, for from Holmes own story we have it that he had trailed Waltz, trying to steal the mine (or worse) but was caught, Waltz may have been trying to mislead Holmes deliberately.
As to how this relates to Julia, remember her actions do not match up well with the story we get from her (and Reiney) but it may be traced to the fact that Holmes met with Julia after she had given up searching but BEFORE Bicknell or any other treasure hunter had approached her to interview. She may well have altered the story to fit with Holmes version. In her first attempt there was no story of Peraltas or massacre, funnel shaped pit etc, she simply went looking for trail markers that would lead to the mine.
As to the millions made from "keeping the story alive" we need only look at the city that Waltz built - Apache Junction. The treasure writers have NOT made millions on selling the story. If you doubt me contact one of the treasure magazines and find out exactly what they pay. Then look up some of the treasure books, and see for yourself that very often, the writer himself had to PAY to have the books published out of his own pocket! Then he had to try to sell them! One of the more famous writers, Barry Storm, whose story was even picked up by Hollywood and made into a movie (Lust For Gold) ended up living in a plywood shack on his jade claim in California. Does that sound like he made millions on the story? The real people whom have benefited from the legend are the many businesses and especially the developers whom have built thousands of homes and drove the government to create the Superstitions Wilderness Area as the only legal way to stop it from becoming one massive suburb!
Sorry for the long-winded reply, I do enjoy your videos and hope you will continue. I certainly do not wish to discourage you in any way. Just keep in mind that at the core of this legend, the truth may be hard to recognize, especially when trying to fit details from unrelated stories together.
Please do continue amigos,
Oroblanco
