Want Info about Willcox Az area for metal detecting for gold

[jolene]

Will be visiting the Willcox area on June 1st. Can anyone suggest an area nearby for detecting.

[mrs.oroblanco]

One of the more famous areas near Willcox is from one of the Willcox train robberies.

Some half-baked robbers tried to rob the train out of the Willcox station. When they got about 5 miles out (by the dry lake), they blew up
the safe. They used WAY too many explosives, and blew coins to kingdom come. People have been looking for those blown up coins for
years.

Go to the Willcox train station - out that old road past it (it turns to dirt), along side the tracks - we have not been lucky enough to find any,
but we have found some interesting things out there.

There have been many train robberies out there - that is just one of them.

Beth

[Skywola]

I have read about this, somewhere, I believe I read that the railroad tracks were moved, so the old railroad location was different than the present location. The coins that were "blown to kingdom come" as you put it were not the target of the robbers. They were canvas bags of silver pesos, being shipped to the Mexican Government. The dynamite was most likely placed against the the safe door, and bags of silver pesos stacked around the explosive. I think they got away with more than $50,000 . . . . I wouldn't call them half-baked!

[mrs.oroblanco]

You are correct.

However, the dirt road you drive down is where the railroad used to be - it was moved over somewhat - but, you are still right there.


And, once you get out there a little ways, you can see where the old tracks were very well (there are old timbers from the older bridge-spans, too.).

Beth

[elkman13]

Thought I read some years ago that all the coins were recovered.

[mrs.oroblanco]

No - they recovered a bunch of them - but not all. Back a couple of years ago - someone found a piece of one. I guess that would be more than a couple of years now - probably about 5.

Also, can't remember exactly when, but someone found a cave in the hills that had an old saddle and a few other things that they thought might
have belonged to the gang.

Beth

[Skywola]

There is actually another thread on this site the has quite a bit of info on the robbery.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.p...,148328.0.html

Me, I am not so interested in where the Mexican pesos are, I'm more interested in what happened to the $50,000+ that they took with them. I'd bet it is buried
somewhere . . . . If I were going to hide something like that, I have a pretty good idea
where I would put it . . .