05x13 - The Legend of the Lost Dutchman's Mine

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, the most famous
lost mine in the old West.

The quantity of gold
in the Lost Dutchman mine

is over half a billion dollars.

People have been searching
well over a century,

but no one's found it.

The clues to its
whereabouts are intriguing,

but some say the land is cursed.

Anybody who trespassed
against this sacred land

would face death.

The Superstition Mountains
are unusually dangerous,

they're rugged and unforgiving.

Now, we explore the top theories

surrounding the Lost
Dutchman's mine.

Lo and behold, they have
these cryptic symbols on them.

The heart on the stones is
the key to the entire puzzle.

As legends suggests,

is it possible the gold
and the land it's hidden on

are somehow cursed?

Many people have died

trying to find the
Lost Dutchman mine

and there are people
that are still willing

to risk their lives to find it.

Where is the Lost
Dutchman's mine?

Spring 1891.

On the outskirts of
Phoenix, Arizona,


immigrant Jacob Waltz

is having a string of bad luck.

Jacob Waltz is a prospector

who has come to Arizona

during the Gold
Boom in the 1860s.

By 1891, he is a farmer

and his farm home has
been basically ruined

in a massive flood.

Some accounts have him spending

as many as two nights in
a tree to avoid the water,

contracting pneumonia
in the process.

Jacob is nursed back to health

by a woman named Julia
Thomas, who's 29 years old,

so she's much
younger than Jacob.

Now she runs a boarding house

that Jacob eventually
moves into,

and since they
both speak German,

they eventually
develop a rapport.

What happens next

is Jacob is visited by
some of his friends,

who bring five sacks of gold

that they recovered
from his farmhouse.

Julia perks up as anyone would,

and she starts to
realize, you know,

maybe there's more to
this scruffy looking man

than she first thought.

Julia plays
nurse for several months,

taking care of Waltz,

and they grow close.

With that growing
trust and friendship,

Jacob could find some Julia

where the gold his
friends brought, is from.

He tells her that
the gold is from a mine

that is hidden in the
Superstition Mountains nearby

and that it's filled with gold.

Jacob confides in Julia,

this mine has over
$20 million in gold,

which in today's dollars
would be around 700 million.

The Superstition Mountains

are sacred territory to
the Apache Native Americans

who are indigenous to this area.

So according to Apache lore,

the Superstition Mountains
are named as such

because it's the hum
of their thunder god,

who lives in the mountain.

And according to their legend,

he will k*ll anyone
who trespasses there.

The historical root
of this tradition

seems to lie in
events from the 1840s.

There was a family from
Mexico City called the Peraltas,

and they made it a point
to mine the gold in there.

And the Apaches told them

that they should not
be in the mountains.

So one day, the Peraltas
got tired of the harassment

and so they decided
to pack up and leave

and take their whole
operation back to Mexico,

but they only got so far.

When they were exposed
in the clearing,

that's when the Apaches swooped
down on the whole party.

The Peralta family don't
have a lot of history

on what happened next.

One version of the story is that

there was a big
fight with the Apache

and that a lot of people died.

The other story is that
they were all massacred,

but one or two people,

who managed to escape
back to the family.

The last thing the Apaches did

was to go and take mules

with saddlebags
full of gold ore,

and they took them
back into the mountain.

The Apache's dynamite
some of the mines closed,

but according to legend,
one of them stays open.

Waltz claims that


while prospecting on his own,

he comes across the
last Peralta mine.

Waltz goes
inside and what does he find?

Gold everywhere.

So much gold, he can like
cut it off the walls.

It's embedded in
quartz, it's gold ore,

there's veins of
gold everywhere.

Then, many years
later on his deathbed,

he makes something
of a confession

to what might have
been his only friend.

He says that when he recovers,

he's going to take
her to this mine,

but his situation
only gets worse.

And so he develops a stroke,

he's partially crippled,

but he's still able
to draw this map

and it has these cryptic clues

to the location of this mine.

One of the clues that Jacob
leaves behind for Julia,

is he says that at the
entrance of the mine,

it looks like an
upside down funnel.

One of the other clues is that

from the mine's entrance,

you can see what he
calls a military trail.

Another clue says
that a particular shadow

would be cast from
Weaver's Needle,

which is a distinctive
geological formation

in the Superstition Mountains.

The entrance to the mine

is within the shadow
cast of Weaver's Needle,

and the sun will shine
into the mine's entrance

and the mine is located on a
north-south running canyon;

with a rock face
near the entrance.

Waltz also tells Julia

that from the mine,
you can see four peaks

that appear to be
lined up as one.

The four peaks landmarks

is about 40 miles
outside of Phoenix.

It's part of the
Tonto National Forest.

But did he mean they line up

and look like one peak,

or can you see all
four peaks at once?

No one knows quite
exactly what he meant,

and where to start from.

Waltz dies
on October 25th, 1891,

taking the mine's exact
location to his grave.

Julia immediately determines

to go and find the lost mine.

But after months of searching,

using the clues in the
map that Waltz had left,

they are unable
to find anything.

No gold, no mine, nothing.

She gets to the point where

she becomes
financially destitute,

and eventually
she has to give up

because she can't find it.

But she does decide
to tell a newspaper

everything that
Jacob had told her.

And the story begins to spread

and this is how this
whole new fervor starts,

looking for gold in the
Superstition Mountains.

With these articles,

the term "Lost Dutchman's
mine" is invented.

Interestingly enough, Waltz
is not Dutch, he's German.

A lot of German immigrants
during this period,

and the Americans hear Deutsch,

which is German for "German,"

but the name Dutch sticks;

and so they become known
as Dutch immigrants.

People now pour into
the Superstition Mountains

in search of the
hidden treasure.

Initially,

many of these fortune
hunters alight on one spot.

Weaver's Needle is a
very unique land formation.

It is the remnant of what used
to be a prehistoric volcano,

on the very eastern part of
the Superstition Mountain.

It eroded throughout time

and all that's left now
is a huge, tall pinnacle

and it looks like a real
tall skinny mountain.

It's named after Pauline Weaver,

a mountain man and scout

who explored the area
in the 19th century.

You can see from
it, a military road.

And if you remember,

Jacob Waltz refers to being
able to see a military road

from the entrance of the mine.

But, there's a size problem.

Weaver's Needles very big,
it's like a thousand feet high,

so it casts a very big shadow.

Doesn't make finding the
actual mine very easy.

Even before Jacob Waltz

makes his deathbed confession

and the Lost Dutchman's
mine gets its name,

the area around Weaver's Needle

earns a sinister reputation.

In 1880, two former
soldiers travel into Phoenix

and they approach a silver mine

and the manager there
looking for work,

and they have gold
ore with them.

Remember, at this time,
Phoenix isn't very big.

It's a small rural community,
about 2,500 people.

So if someone rolls into
town with a bunch of gold,

people are gonna notice.

They sell some gold ore

and the person buying the ore

is struck by the quantity,

as well as the
quality of this ore.

And he asks these two soldiers,

where did you find this gold?

And they said, well,

there's tons of it
laying around this mine.

So he tells them, well,

if you guys think
there's that much gold,

I'll outfit you and you
bring back some more samples,

and I'll invest and back
you on this venture.

So the soldiers then
leave, outfitted.

After two weeks,

the soldiers failed to return.

Hoping the men haven't
run off with the gold

or been taken by the Apache,

a search party is sent out.

And they eventually
find the two men,

naked and dead, each
shot in the head.

m*rder*d for the gold?

We're not sure.

The reality is that

this is a really
treacherous landscape

and mining is a very
dangerous, cutthroat business

and people are afraid.

It lends credence to the curse.

It makes it more real.

Well into the 20th century,

People searching for
the Lost Dutchman's mine

close to Weaver's Needle,

have met with tragic ends.

Some people are m*rder*d.

You have dehydration,
starvation.

These are very treacherous
conditions in these mountains,

so there's a lot of mystery
and legend tied to this.

But with so many deaths
and so little gold found,

treasure hunters
are now beginning

to search other
locations for the mine.

Numerous lives have been lost

in Arizona's
Superstition Mountains,

in the hunt for the
Lost Dutchman's mine.

Some swear an Apache
curse is to blame,

but that hasn't
stopped prospectors

from carrying on the search.

And along with Weaver's Needle,

there is another location

that's long been associated

with the Lost Dutchman's mine.

This spot isn't without
its tragedy as well,

and it's home to one of

the most well known and puzzling

attempts to find
the lost goldmine.

In 1914, Erwin Ruth,

the son of an amateur treasure
hunter named Adolf Ruth

travels to Mexico on business.

While he's in Mexico,

one version of the story is that

Erwin saves the life of
a government official.

The official learns about

his father's interest in
Western folklore and treasure,

and it so happens
that this Mexican

has some connection to
treasure in the American West.

He is in fact a distant
relative of the Peraltas,

and he gives to Erwin some maps;

maps of the fabled Peralta mines

somewhere in the
Superstition Mountains.

Erwin is not especially
interested in the maps,

but his father certainly is.

He has them inspected and dated

to around the time of
the Mexican revolution,

which seems to provide
some sense of authenticity.

The maps are in
some ways legible,

in that they seem to
denote a particular area;

the Superstition Mountains,

but other things about
them don't make sense.

He's studying this map

and he's looking
at the geography,

and it doesn't quite match up.

Ultimately, Ruth concludes that

people have been looking

in the wrong place
the whole time.

Weaver's Needle is not the key.

It's, in fact,

another equally distinct
geological formation:

Blacktop Mesa.

So Adolf Ruth decides to go

on this solo expedition
to blacktop Mesa,

using these maps to try to find

this secret hidden mine

that it supposedly
holds the clues to.

Adolf Ruth arrives in Arizona

in the spring of 1931;

a 66-year-old with
chronic pain and a limp.

Adolf Ruth is
about five feet tall

and just about a
hundred pounds wet,

so he's not the guy to be

going into the
mountains at that time.

What happens is, Ruth
finds some ranch hands

that are willing to
make a few extra bucks

to take Ruth in and
set him up in a camp.

So June 14th, 1931,

they take him to a place
called Willow Springs

and that's where they leave him.

After about a week,
they don't hear from him,

so they go into the
mountains looking for him

and they don't find him.

His camp has been abandoned.

Nothing more is heard about
Adolf Ruth for several months

and then some campers
eventually make a discovery.

Over near the Salt River,

some campers end up finding
a message in a bottle

and it's allegedly from Ruth.

And it says, I'm under
a tree, I'm injured,

I found the Lost
Dutchman's mine.

Fast forward to December,

they eventually do
find Ruth's skull;

just a skull, no body,

and there is what appears
to be a b*llet hole in it.

About a month after
they discover Ruth's head,

his body is found.

And none of his
belongings are missing,

except for the maps.

In a bag, he has a checkbook

in which he's
written some notes.

One of the most relevant
notes is the Latin phrase,

Veni, vidi, vici, which
is Julius Caesar's words,

I came, I saw, I conquered.

Does that mean that Ruth found

the fabled Lost Dutchman's mine?

Well, some of his
other scribbles

suggest that maybe he did.

Unfortunately, most of what
he writes doesn't make sense.

The only thing he does
leave that you can read,

is something about
a mysterious circle

and then fields of
black basaltic rock.

The Ruth story

grabs headlines
around the country

and the public becomes obsessed.

All of these elements add
up to a media sensation,

which is attractive to audiences

in the depths of
the Great Depression

where their eyes look west

to a place where most
Americans will never go,

except in their imaginations.

A place where they
can imagine themselves

leading more authentic,
more exciting,

more dangerous lives.

It reignites interest in
the Lost Dutchman mine,

interest that has not
abated to this day.

Initially, they rule
Ruth's death a suicide,

but then they realized
he never fired his g*n.

So now they believe that he died

because of natural causes,
the harsh conditions,

dehydration, starvation,

and they believe that the
holes are from a predator

and happened after he died.

But even after all these years,

many people theorize
that Ruth was m*rder*d

by someone who wanted
the Lost Dutchman's mine

all to themselves.

Ruth's argument
for Blacktop Mesa

being the locale
of the lost mine,

is persuasive to him and has
been to other treasure hunters,

but it doesn't line up

with all of the clues that
Waltz left on his deathbed.

Blacktop Mesa is not

within the shadow
of Weaver's Needle,

so that clue is
kind of outta play.

However, it is
geographically sort of close

and the black basalt
sort of fits in

with the note he left
in his checkbook.

There are other points

that are in favor
of Blacktop Mesa.

It gets its name from
its top of basalt,

which is also more
impervious to erosion,

that gives it its flat top.

We also know that
volcanic eruptions can,

under the right circumstances,

help to produce precious metals.

Could the blacktop

sit on top of a layer of gold?

Blacktop is also located
above the canyon floor,

so you can see a
military road from there.

Because Blacktop Mesa

is relatively close
to Weaver's Needle,

the rest of the clues
left behind by Jacob Waltz

line up about as well as
they do for Weaver's Needle.

Whatever Ruth did
or didn't discover,

whatever did or
didn't happen to him,

those are secrets he took
with him to his grave.

The 1950s and sixties

brings new types of gold hunters

to Arizona's
Superstition Mountains

in search of the
Lost Dutchman's mine.

Some are meticulous researchers

with intricate plans
forged over years.

Others are professional
businessmen

with the money to invest
whatever it takes.

With the 1950s and sixties

comes a new breed
of treasure hunter.

Taking advantage
of new surveying

or geological tools
that can not only

look at the land but
look into the land,

in ways that haven't
been possible before.

In addition, they
aren't just looking

at Weaver's Needle
and Blacktop Mesa,

they're looking elsewhere.

But there's one fortune hunter

who's convinced Adolf
Ruth was onto something.

In the 1960s, a private
investigator from Oklahoma City

by the name of Glen MaGill

becomes interested
in Ruth's story.

He's a respected
man in his community

and he's actually interested

in debunking myths
and mysteries.

MaGill reads about Ruth's maps

and he concludes
that there's no way

he would've brought the
original map that he had,

into the Superstition Mountains
when he was prospecting.

He concludes that
the original maps

had to still be at
Ruth's original home.

To test his theory,

he tracks down Adolf's
son, Erwin Ruth,

and arranges a meeting.

MaGill learns from
Ruth's son, that yes,

his father had
taken the originals.

But, and Erwin says,

he did make copies
and I have one.

MaGill and Erwin strike
up something of a friendship

and so Erwin eventually gives
MaGill a copy of the maps.

Being the good private
investigator that he is,

MaGill also contacts
and speaks with

members of the Peralta family

to see what they know.

MaGill eventually concludes

that all of Jacob
Waltz's cryptic clues

lead to a spot
called Cañon Fresco,

which translates to the
cool or fresh canyon.

This is a good
spot to look, why?

Because it's in the
shadow of Weaver's Needle,

you can see the
four peaks from it

and you can see
the military road.

Incidentally, you can't see

from the military
road, up to the area.

MaGill is a private eye,

he's not a mountain man.

So what he does is
in December of 1964,

he hires a helicopter

so he can look at the
location from the air.

He takes hundreds of
aerial photographs

of the Superstitions,

hoping to correlate those to
the copies of Ruth's maps.

Based upon the aerial
photographs in the flyover,

he finds this green area

which he decides to investigate.

MaGill identifies
a hidden green canyon

atop Bluff Springs mountain.

He thinks this is Cañon Fresco.

He heads out to investigate.

And when he is able
to make it there,

he finds mule
shoes in the ground

purportedly from
the Peralta's stock.

MaGill assembles a small team

and returns for a closer look.

He and a team decide
to go into the mountains,

in this particular area.

And in the process,

they find this hidden
vertical mineshaft,

which matches the description

of the entrance to the mine

that Jacob Waltz
had reflected on

in his cryptic clues
that he relayed to Julia.

They end up going
into that mine shaft

and find even more clues.

You find some
rough hewn timbers,

exactly of the type

that the Peralta said that
they used in their mines.

So, all this is coming together.

He's super excited.

MaGill is so confident

that he has found the
Lost Dutchman's mine,

that he files a claim
to start excavating;

which is huge national news.

Only trouble is,
there's no gold.

He spends thousands
and thousands of dollars

going in to the mountains

and going to this specific
spot in Cañon Fresco.

But, he finds no gold;

but he doesn't give up.

He really believes
he's in the right spot.

References
to MaGill's expeditions

slowly fade from the news,

but his work breathes new life

into the search for the
Lost Dutchman's mine.

Even though it turns out

that MaGill didn't
find the treasure,

he did find this green
area, Cañon Fresco,

that none of the
other treasure hunters

before him had discovered.

But I think what a lot
of people don't understand

is that in desert regions,

climate can change very quickly.

This can wreak havoc with
some of these older maps,

because the terrain changes.

It's hard to say if MaGill

found Cañon Fresco
from Ruth's maps,

or he found a different spot.

The original clue from the
maps might still be valid.

The tale of Jacob Waltz

and the Lost Dutchman's mine

has been told and retold so
many times over the years,

it's impossible to know
where the truth ends

and the legend begins.

Hundreds of treasure hunters

have ventured into the
supposedly cursed land

of the Superstition Mountains,

only to come up empty
time and time again.

But what if the tale of
an accidental discovery

of a relic on the desert floor

could be the key that
finally unlocks the mystery?

Throughout the 20th century,

Adolf Ruth's maps, as
complicated as they are,

were considered the
only legitimate maps

to the Lost Dutchman's mine.

But it is possible

that there is another
guide out there

just waiting to be decoded.

One local legend

goes back to the late 1940s.

Oregon police officer
Travis Tumlinson

is vacationing in Arizona.

On the long drive,

he pulls off the
side of a highway

some 10 miles from the
Superstition Mountains

to stretch his legs.

He's walking along Highway 60,

outside Apache
Junction in Arizona,

and he trips on what
appears to be four stones.

He picks them up.

They have these cryptic
sketches and carvings on them.

One has a carving of
a priest and a cross,

one has a horse, another has
a heart with an inscription.

He's curious.

He thinks he's found
some southwestern art,

so he sells it to
a local collector.

But then, the Dutch
treasure hunters come in

and what they see is
something very different.

They see stones that
can be put together

in such a way is
to reveal a map.

A map to what? The
Lost Dutchman mine.

What could be the
real clue on the stones,

is that there seems to be

an inscription of
a name, Miguel.

Miguel is a Peralta
family member.

There are also words
that translate to,

I pasture north of a river.

There's also this phrase,



It does sound like a
cryptic treasure map.

And one of the stones
has a shape of a heart

with the year 1847.

Well, that is a year before

the Peralta family is massacred.

Decades have gone by,

no one can decode these stones,

not for a lack of trying.

One of the things

that the stone maps
have going for them,

is that unlike their
paper counterparts,

they're unchanged by
the passage of time.

They're not as
easy to manipulate

and they can't be redrawn

like the paper
maps may have been.

Eventually, the stones
end up in a Phoenix museum.

Decades later, they become

very interesting to a couple,

Robert Kesselring
and his wife Linda.

He's a m*ssile systems engineer,

she's a computer scientist.

They spend a lot
of time and energy

trying to decode
those stone carvings.

They take the stones

and they compare them
to topography maps

and they really focus in
on one part of the stone,

which is this heart
indentation in the stone.

Starting in 2009,

the Kesselrings spend years

trying to decode the clues.

Finally, in 2013,

they think they've
cracked the mystery.

Robert Kesselring
seems to believe

that the heart is one
of many mining symbols

that date back to the
time of the Peraltas;

and to Kesselring,

the heart along
with other symbols

like crosses and circles
are part of what is

kind of like a secret code.

For Kesselring, the heart is

almost like an arrow
pointing to the mine.

The Kesselrings head out
to the Superstition Mountains

to narrow their search area.

Using a combination
of aerial photography

and on the ground observation,

they determined that the
place we should be looking

is somewhere else in
the Superstitions.

The Kesselrings think the mine

is in a spot called
Deering Canyon.

They also think this area
lines up to Waltz's clues.

Having concluded
that Deering Canyon

is where Waltz's mine is,

they set out to search the area.

In route, they pass
by some tribal remains,

which make them think of the
curse of Superstition Mountains

so they really think
they're on the right track.

The Kesselrings setup camp

and search the area for
signs of the lost gold mine.

Against a cliff face,

Kesselring finds what
he believes was once

the entrance to a mine shaft.

He says he sees

what he believes are
Spanish mining symbols

around the entrance
to the shaft,

and he believes that
this is evidence

that the Peraltas once
mined in this area.

They think this could be

one of these sealed
Peralta mines.

According to Kesselring,

the entrance to the
mine shaft looks like

it's been filled up
through natural erosion.

Next to that
first caved in mine,

they find a series of others

and that aligns with legend

that the Apaches
sealed up the mines

after trespassers
had come through.

As they continue
to survey the area,

they notice a distinct
patch of very tall grass

suggesting that at some point
in the not too distant past,

that ground had been disturbed;

that its composition
is different,

enabling a different
type of vegetation.

Kesselring uses a piece of tech

called a ground phase recorder.

It's kind of like radar

and it creates a hologram image

of what is under the
surface of this earth.

And underneath, they
seem to see a mineshaft

a couple feet below the surface.

What the
Kesselrings think is a mine

is covered with two feet
of dirt and overgrowth.

Looking at the cliff face,

Kesselring believes
that he could see cracks

that are known as fault gouges.

These cracks are pinkish-white.

Kesselring believes
that this pinkish color

comes from rhyolite lava,

which sometimes can be
an indicator of gold.

For Kesselring, this
is the moment of truth,

the moment of proof
that the mine exists.

I know where it is, here it is.

But as with his predecessors,
that isn't enough.

There's something that's
going to stand in his way.

Now fortunately for
Kesselring it isn't death,

it's the federal government.

Deering Canyon, like the
whole Dutchman search area,

is part of the Tonto
National Forest.

There's this thing
called the Wilderness Act.

They're in a national park

and you can't dig and
mine in a national park,

without permission.

So until the government
gives permission

for people to
excavate this area,

they could have found
the Lost Dutchman mine,

but no one's gonna know.

Some find reason

to question the
Kesselrings' findings

and the validity of the
Peralta stones themselves.

Many have argued that the
Peralta stones are fakes,

that they aren't ancient stones,

that they're the product
of more contemporary hands.

The heart in particular
seems like machine cut;

like it seems too
perfect of a heart

to have been carved in
the mid 19th century.

So whether or not
the Peralta stones

actually relate to
the Lost Dutchman mine

and whether they
are real or not,

it matters, but it
sort of doesn't.

Why? Because it really brings
the idea of the lost mine

front and center.

Stories of
the Lost Dutchman's mine

continue to echo throughout
the Superstition Mountains.

And in the early 1980s,

a new treasure trove of
information about the mine

comes to light.

Ted Cox is a local,
born in the 1920s.

Very interested in a lost mine.

Cox has been looking for
the Lost Dutchman's mine

his entire life, and
based upon his notes,

he thinks he found it.

One of the important
things about Cox

is that his father was
a contemporary of Waltz,

so he's a little more
closely connected

than other people who've
been looking for the mine.

Like many Arizona miners,

Cox is raised with the stories

of the Superstition Mountains,

which come to include

the Peralta family
legend very quickly.

When he dies in
the spring of 1983,

all of his prospecting notes,



Cox's Widow gives the papers

to a local Dutchman treasure
hunter, Ron Feldman,

who begins to go
through his papers,

which are the story of his life.

What Feldman
learns from the notes

is that Cox concludes,

partly based on the
information he gleans

from his personal
connection to Jacob Waltz,

that the majority of

the searches for
the Dutchman's mine

have been in the wrong area.

The mine is not in the west
side of the Superstitions.

In 1957, Cox is sure

that he has found the
Lost Dutchman's mine.

It's located on the eastern side

of the Superstition Mountains.

The mine that Cox discovered

matches up with
Waltz's original clues.

The mine Cox finds has
a funnel shaped entrance,

just like Waltz described.

You can see a military
trail from the location,

but not vice versa.

And Weaver's Needle is
visible from the mine.

The mine that Cox discovered

even has a rock in the
formation of a horse

that could match one
of the Peralta stones.

From his voluminous records,

it's clear that at this
moment Cox believes

that he is on the precipice
of a great discovery;

that there is gonna be gold,

so he begins digging.

He digs until he's too
old to dig anymore.

And what he does not
find, is any gold.

According to his notes,

Cox doesn't find the treasure,

but he does dig up
what he believes

is the true story of the
Lost Dutchman's mine.

Cox believed that Waltz
was working the mine

without any claim.

So Cox, like Waltz before him,

conceals the mine
when he's not digging,

not wanting anyone
else to find it.

He does this research

and then discovers that

probably somebody had already
swooped in after Waltz,

and taken the gold.

That's why he's not finding
anything in the mine.

A prospector named
James Rogers, in fact,

filed a claim in 1875 for the
mine and it turned out

to be an incredibly
lucrative proposition.

This would've been
roughly 20 years

after Waltz discovered the mine.

Rogers
files the proper paperwork

and is able to claim
the mine as his own.

Naming it, the
Silver Chief mine.

The mine becomes a
rich producer for Rogers;

the most bountiful
producer in the entire area

during the Gold Rush.

Rogers and a partner

ended up making a
million dollars.

If Cox's theory is right,

it means the Dutchman's vast
treasure is already long gone.

But science may
have a way to prove

if the Silver Chief and
Lost Dutchman's mine

are one and the same.

A year after Jacob
Waltz passed away,

a piece of his quartz

that had the gold laced in it

was taken and made
into a matchbox.

That matchbox now exists

in the Superstition
Mountains Museum.

The type of gold ore

in the so-called Waltz
matchbox embedded in quartz,

looks very similar
to some quartz

with some veins of gold
running through it,

that was found in the
Silver Chief mine.

Some modern Dutch hunter
enthusiasts take the matchbox

and they decided they're going

to do some extreme analysis

to try to match it

to some other locations in
the Superstition Mountains.

Purportedly, the
matchbox was tested

against a variety of samples

from different places in
the Superstition Mountains,

but the only good match

was the one from
Silver Chief Mine.

So if we have direct
signature that corresponds,

we have done scientific testing,

process of deduction
suggests that

well, maybe the
mines were the same.

So, maybe the Silver Chief mine

is the Lost Dutchman mine.

The most distinguishing
feature of the matchbox

is its high
concentration of mercury,

which also exists in
the Silver Chief Mine.

Mercury is not very common

to find associated with
other mineral deposits.

It doesn't occur very
often in mines like this,

so, this is a pretty
important clue.

But skeptics argue that
the Silver Chief mine

can't be the Lost Dutchman mine,

because the word
silver is in the name.

But silver and gold
also occur together.

And in this case, who knows
why the silver name was chosen?

But obviously gold was there,
too, because it's there.

But can we really be sure

the Silver Chief and
the Lost Dutchman

are the same mine?

Lots of the clues
are matching up

to what Jacob Waltz left behind,

but it's really hard to tell

because he didn't keep
any accurate records

of what he discovered.

For generations,
Fortune hunters have tried

to decipher Jacob Waltz's clues

and uncover the Lost
Dutchman's mine.

People have searched all over
the Superstition Mountains,

but the fortune remains elusive.

One man thinks he
has a good idea why.

John D. Wilburn was a miner

and geologist and an author.

In 1984, Wilburn writes a book

and his intervention into

the Lost Dutchman mines saga

is to suggest that we go

right back to the
beginning, back to 1892,

and the suggestion is
that Julia Thomas' clues

were either intentionally
or mistakenly wrong.

That they have effectively
misled generations

as to the true location
of the lost Dutchman mine.

Wilburn has studied
rocks and their formations

and he really does not believe

that the formations in
this particular area

would produce that much gold.

Volcanic activity,

like the events that
created Weaver's Needle,

a volcanic plug doesn't
always lead to gold.

It's a sometimes,
not an always thing.

And we have to keep in mind

that Jacob Waltz didn't say

that the gold mine was
at Weaver's Needle.

It was in the shadow
of the needle.

Anybody who's been
to elementary school

knows that the Earth
travels around the sun

and when it does,
shadows change.

So really, how good is
the direction of a shadow

gonna be for a clue?

You do the math.

To Wilburn, the
logical place to look

is somewhere there
is actual gold,

and there are a
number of these places

close to the
Superstition Mountains.

There were boom towns that
arose when gold was discovered

and then vanished after
the mine was played out.

Nestled at the base

of the Superstition
Mountains, sits a ghost town.

The mountain runs east to west

and there's a place that
they refer to as Goldfield

on the very western
part of the mountain.

It's like a little,
tiny ghost town now.

It's a tourist attraction.

That's the closest mine
that they have in that area.

It's in the late 19th century

that gold is first
discovered there.

And as prospectors
rush into the area,

the town of Goldfield
is officially founded.

Goldfield was a boom town.

In its heyday, there were over


hoping to strike it
rich in the gold mines.

Right by Goldfield,

is one of the largest
producing gold mines

in the Superstitions
area; the Bulldog Mine.

The story about Bulldog Mine

is that it was first
discovered in 1864

as part of the big
gold rush in Arizona.

And then perhaps Waltz
worked it starting in 1868,

for about 20 years.

Why does Wilburn think that
the Bulldog mine makes sense?

Well, for starters,

we know not only was
there gold there,

but there was a lot of gold.

The Bulldog mine was in an area

of a lot of producing mines.

Over a million dollars in
gold was taken out of there,

and there was a military trail

that traveled through the area

which is one of
Jacob Waltz's clues.

Finally, in 1897,

the gold in Goldfield
is played out.

The town disappears,

but the legends of the
Lost Dutchman mine remain

and even grow stronger.

Some of the evidence supports

Bulldog mine as the
possible location

of Jacob Waltz's mine.

But once more, we may
never know for sure.

So in 2003, when some
landscaping was being done

by the Bulldog mine,

it collapsed and
it was filled in.

So was the Bulldog mine
the Lost Dutchman mine?

We may never know.

But even today,
when it rains heavy,

you can find gold in the washes

around Goldfield and
the Bulldog mine.

Even now, the lure of gold

still draws tourists to
the area around Goldfield

as well as to the Superstition
Mountains themselves.

While digging is prohibited

and many explorers
still live in fear

that this area is cursed,

treasure hunters can
still be spotted today,

searching for gold
with metal detectors.

Is there a billion dollar
gold mine lurking underfoot

somewhere in the shadow
of Weaver's Needle?

We can only dream.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."