Standoff at High Noon by Bill Markley & KELLEN CUTSFORTH

Author:Bill Markley & KELLEN CUTSFORTH [Markley, Bill & CUTSFORTH, KELLEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493053353
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2021-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE

JUST THE FACTS

Located in what is today the state of Arizona, the Superstition Mountains stand out against the arid desert landscape like monstrous jagged and craggy peaks. Formed twenty-five million years ago from a mass of cooling molten lava and rock, the mountain range was originally called Crooked Top Mountain by the indigenous Indian population because of the mountain’s sharp and misshapen points. When Spanish conquistadors first saw the mountains in the sixteenth century, they referred to Superstition Mountain itself as “Sierra de la Espuma,” or Mountain of Foam, because of the swath of white limestone highlighting the top of the mountain. It was not until Americans settled in the area that the mass of ash-and basalt-composed rocks became known as the Superstition Mountains. No exact reason for the mountain’s name has ever been officially determined.1

Just to the east of the Superstition Mountains, deposits of gold, silver, and copper ore were discovered in several rock outcroppings. The presence of these precious minerals brought a hoard of American miners to the area. Eventually, towns and settlements sprang up around this vast mineral belt and gave birth to famous mines like the Silver King. On the western edge of the Superstitions, however, the town of Goldfield caused one of the biggest stirs.2

Goldfield sprang to life in 1893 when a vein of gold was discovered in the area the previous year. The boomtown flourished for five years but soon went bust when the ore grade dropped and the veins ran dry.3 This golden discovery, however, helped to bolster one of the greatest legends in American history, the Lost Dutchman Mine.

Several years before the founding of Goldfield, tales of the Lost Dutchman Mine circulated throughout the West. Originally believed to have been discovered by German immigrant Jacob Waltz and possibly another immigrant named Jacob Weiser, the Lost Dutchman is believed to contain a “mother lode” of gold ore. In this period, before German unification, the slang term “Dutch” was used for people from both the Netherlands and Germany.

In truth, there are multiple versions of tales relating to the Lost Dutchman Mine. Many of those tales revolve around Jacob Waltz. Waltz immigrated to the United States from Germany somewhere around 1848. According to historic records, he was most likely born in Wurttemberg in 1810.4 Waltz apparently relocated to Arizona in the 1860s, living there until the end of his days.5

In 1868, Jacob Waltz homesteaded 160 acres of farmland outside of Phoenix. Twenty years later in 1891, a devastating flood wiped out Waltz’s farm. Jacob fell ill shortly afterward, contracting pneumonia during the flooding. During his illness, Waltz was nursed by a woman named Julia Thomas, an acquaintance of his living in the area. Jacob eventually died from the illness on October 25, 1891.6

On his deathbed, Waltz supposedly told Thomas about the location of an alleged secret gold mine. It is also believed that Waltz provided Julia with a crudely hand-drawn map of the mine’s location in the Superstition Mountains. As early

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