The Lost Pick MineIt was rumored in the frontier town of Phoenix in 1873, that an old Apache Indian was bartering rich chunks of gold ore for supplies at the store in Fort McDowell. The Apache was known to live up in the Bronco canyon country about 50 miles north of Phoenix and 25 miles northwest of the fort.
The bartering had been going on for about a year when two prospectors by the name of Brown and Davis came into the country from Phoenix. They happened to be in the store one day when the old Apache came in with his pockets full of nuggets of gold. The two prospectors were old-timers, but in all their experience they had never seen such rich rock.
Having bartered his gold, the Indian started off across the desert. After traveling about 10 miles he dropped down into Coon creek canyon and followed that up to where it joins the east fork of Bronco canyon.
There the trail was lost by the two prospectors who had been following a few miles behind the Indian.
Returning to the fort the two men purchased supplies sufficient to last them several weeks and then headed their burros out across the desert in the direction of Wild Burro canyon. That night they camped at a small spring on the south fork of the canyon where a stream of water bubbled from the west bank and ran several hundred feet before losing itself in the sand.
One day while prospecting in the wild brush covered country on the west side of the canyon they discovered an 18 inch quartz vein very rich in free gold similar in form to that they had seen in the hands of the Indian. The vein outcropped in a patch of manzanita brush and showed every evidence of having been worked. Little piles of ore were scattered along the vein and under the palo verde trees that grew nearby. Pottery sherds strewn over the ground indicated that the vein had been worked by Indian squaws.
Brown and Davis returned to their camp at the spring and constructed a crude arrastre in which to grind the rich ore. After 25 sacks of the quartz had been mined and milled, the partners estimated they had in the neighborhood of $70,000 or $80,000 in gold in their possession. Their pannings indicated that the ore would assay around $80,000 per ton in gold. As fast as the amalgam was taken from the floor of the arrastre it was rolled into balls and stored in a hole under a large rock that stood near the arrastre on hte east bank of the creek.
With all this wealth the partners decided to return to their old home in San Francisco, where after a few months rest they would purchase machinery and return to work in their mine.
Early in the morning as they were getting ready to break camp, a small party of Apache warriors emerged from the rocks near the arrastre and started firing. Davis, the younger of the two prospectors, fell dead with a bullet through his head. Brown grabbed his rifle and sprang behind a large boulder as six Apaches made a rush for the camp. From his place of concealment Brown killed three of the Apaches and wounded a fourth. The others abandoned the fight and disappeared into the rocky canyon.
Brown crawled into the manzanita thicket and escaped with his rifle and the clothes he had on his back. A piece of rich ore he carried in his pocket was assayed in San Francisco some years later and was found to contain $84,000 a ton in gold.
Brown kept his secret, awaiting the time when it would be safe to return to the Indian country.
Eventually the Indians were pacified and placed on reservations. Then, although he was now 80 years of age, the prospector decided to return to the scene of the strike.
He reached Phoenix on his way to the Bronco canyon country, but while he was gathering supplies and an outfit to accompany him into the desert wilderness, he was taken ill and placed in a hospital.
On his deathbed he told for the first time the story of the strike he and Davis had made, and of the fight with the Indians. The balls of amalgam, he said, were buried in a shallow hole between a large boulder and a stratum of white volcanic ash that outcrops along the foot of the mountains on the east side of the little valley. The gold probably was still there, unless the Apaches had seen it buried and had taken it.
Several years later a Mexican goat-herder in that area came across the site of an old mining camp, and reported that he had seen a rusty pick sticking in a crevice in a small quartz vein, but did not stop to investigate. This story tallied closely with Brown's dying statement that his partner's pick was in the quartz when he was killed by the Indians. The Mexican had disappeared, however, before the story of the pick reached those who knew about the lost gold mine.
It is said that a circle of rocks indicating the location of an ancient arrastre may be found in that region today, but neither the pick nor the cache of gold has been relocated as far as is known.
Posted under the terms of Fair Use, extract from the book
Lost Mines & Buried Treasures Along the Old Frontier, by John D. Mitchell, 1954, pp 49-52
=================
This is the basic story that our amigo Capn Bill was heading out to track down - and that $70,000 worth of gold already mined would be worth $5.600,000 today. Definitely worth the time to find it and dig it up!
Good luck and good hunting amigos, I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Oroblanco
PS - Loke, if you read this, does anything jump out at you? Hmm?
Linkback: You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login
http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,2200.msg219301.html#msg219301
|
|
Logged
|
"We must find a way, or we will make one." -> Hannibal Barca
|
