I guess everyone has dreamed of winning the lottery, well not everyone, but many of us have good plans for the use of the money, should lady luck hand it to us – we’d sure fix things. In my youth I spent lots of time looking for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine in the Superstition Mountains of Central Arizona.
About the time my family moved to Arizona in 1950, there was a movie that came out about the Lost Dutchman Mine. I became fascinated with the notion of finding it. So I read every book I could find on a man named Jacob Waltzer, who stirred many folks into believing he’d found a great treasure in the Superstitions.
The general jist of the Dutchman story lies a ways from fact, I fear. Jacob Waltzer came to the United States from Germany. He first worked in the Georgia gold mines and must have learned all about it there before moving to California to file some claims there. Then he joined some early prospecting parties who ventured into Apache country. Some say he may have came with early explorer Pauline Weaver who they later named Weaver’s Needle after.
Then, the Dutchman began showing up in Phoenix with gold and lots of it. He had a partner, whose name evades me at the moment, and usually one of them stayed at the mine and one went to town for supplies. While Waltzer was on one such trip his partner was attacked by Apaches – I believe they were probably Yavapia who lived over at Fort McDowell. Some historians get them mixed up with the Apaches.
His wounded partner managed to crawl out of the mountains and would later die being treated by an Indian Agency doctor. The doctor wrote a report up about his death from Indian arrows and how he talked about their rich gold mine in the Superstitions. Those are facts we know from the army files. Waltzer did not kill his partner as some writers have charged, and actually there was some amount of threatened vigilante actions against Waltzer, talked about in newspapers at the time of his disappearance. But the poor communications at the time let his partner’s death slip under the screen.
The 40 square miles of mountains is rugged. Pines grow at the higher elevation and in one place near the rock spear called Weaver’s Needle, a giant saguaro cactus and a tall pine tree grow side by side. Very unusual.
Rumors say the Peralta Family had a land grant to this range and brought vast amounts of gold out when the U.S. made the Gadsen purchase. However this pack train fell in the hands of the Apaches, probably Yavapia, and was lost.
Evidence of mining went on in the eastern portions of Superstition, along with much timbering, possibly for mine timbers. There also were places where they ran the grinding wheel to make the ore richer and was powered by mules going in circles – aristas is what the Spanish called them. Still there are no obvious signs of any extensive mining in that area. To mine you must have tailings and they are obvious in this desert land.
In a line drawn from Four Peaks to Weaver’s Needle is where my mine is, according to Waltzer. Folks tried that. I did too. It’s like saying somewhere between West Fork and Mountainburg, Ark., on a line with I-540 there is a gold mine. Too big an area to search is all I can say, and rugged.
One old timer I knew as a boy growing up said that Waltzer had driven an ore wagon over at the Vultura Mine west of Wickenburg to the smelter. He tossed off the rich rocks going over and later came back and got them. That was where his gold came from – he was high grader.
The only gold in or near Superstition is the Goldfield Mines east of Apache Junction. Several people have been killed up there over the years and the legend goes on.
Since Superstition is now a designated federal wilderness area, if you find it you can’t file a claim – so keep it a secret and hope no one finds out. Happy hunting.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting www.ozarksfn.com and clicking on 'Contact Us' or call 1-866-532-1960.
