QUESTIONS RELATING TO LOST TREASURES AND GOLD MINES, ETC

[TheHarleyMan2]

I have read many stories regarding lost treasures, buried loot, gold mines, etc. Upon reading many of the stories about their locations, etc, I have several questions. I know that treasure legends are told and many times the stories get stretched a bit and maybe most of the stories are just sold as books for one to make money by making a story up or stretch it a bit. And I feel about 10-50% of the each story is accurate, (in most cases), otherwise they would have been found a long time ago by everyone including the story writer. I know very few have been found and those who may have found some kept it a secret from everyone else.

Now my questions regarding many of the tales told, several main questions that always stands out and makes someone really wonder.

Why are most areas where buried treasures, loot, or lost gold mines always happen to be on federal government land or forests? Are the tales so true that the governmnet doesn't want anyone looking for them and want to keep them hidden? Are they just stories told with locations that in todays times one can not even dig on federal land to search for it? Could it be the author placed the treasure tale on federal land knowing people will not be able to search and find out if the story is true?

I know back in the day people found stuff, mined it, kept it a secret, and lost some of them, etc, and some of it may be true for the most part. But why is it always found when someone researches possible locations Uncle Sam OWNS the national forests, parks, or lands that these treasures have been rumored to be located in?

On a SERIOUS note, why is it ALWAYS on government land?

Just for thought, I was just wondering and would like some honest input.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

I put very little stock in all those "lost treasure" stories. If you ever get a chance to read from treasure mag's back in the 1960s and '70s, that's all they were: Just lost treasure mine lore type stuff.

I mean, c'mon: How many stories of the: dying miner dragging himself into a saloon, the lone survivor of an indian attack, who spills his story of fabulous riches to curious on-lookers, only to die before being able to reclaim his treasure - do you have to read about before realizing they're all goof-ball stories?

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

I totally agree Tom. Most of the stories I read online so it doesn't cost me a penny. But lets take Ben Sublets story as an example and what was known about him. Now the people of Odessa, Texas around his time know his history of going away heading west for a few days up in or towards the Guadalupe Mountains and come back with gold. Now speculation on the story doesn't give the exact location as it died with him, but people saw him come back with gold on every trip he went.

Like I said, some of the stories may be somewhat at least 10% true many may be just plain old stories and just that. But old Ben's gold mine if is was in the Guadalupe Mountains, (which is a federal park now). Some tales where just like many others, some, (NOT ALL), of these tales ring true. But I do believe that few still exist and also past known abandoned gold mines, (most of them), always seem to be on government land.

Even with some of the accounts of bank robbers and gangs hiding their loot after a robbery. Yes, I believe many of those are 10% some facts, only speculation is the amount of gold coinage or chests claim to have been taken, etc. being they were on horse back.

With people and gangs back in those days distrusted banks, and only carried what they needed and buried the rest (even some gold miners) took what they needed to survive on. Many of the locations of where gangs and bank robbers had their hideouts, many seem to be on government land as well. Some on private property, but I don't believe there are many that is on private land today. For instance one of James Gangs hideouts is believed to be somewhere in the Ozarks in a national forest and other locations mostly on federal land. As most gangs and bank robbers seem to have their hideouts out away from civilization so they couldn't be caught.

I don't know, just my thoughts

 

[maui]

just my opinion, yeah i think the gov. does close of area because of what may be in the groung. if you notice, the area's where these lost treasures are mostly off limits. do alittle search on some of the stories and then look at the land status.
take care and be safe out there. ron

 

[Mackaydon]

Have you considered this:

The Federal Government owns a lot of the land (Federal Lands). For example:
Alaska (81%), Arizona (42%) Calif. (44%), Colorado (30%) Idaho (61%) Montana (29%) Nevada (79%)
New Mexico (33%) Oregon (52%) Utah (60%) Wash. St. (30%) and Wyoming (46%). And these figures EXCLUDE land owned by each state, such as state parks. Land owned by counties, cities and towns is also excluded from those figures. And the federal highway system (Interstates) may also be excluded from these figures; that one I don't know.

Also, how exciting would it be to read a treasure book where all the "X marks the spot" are under highrise buildings, parking lots, shopping centers; or somewhere--lost at sea.

I'm ENTERTAINED by treasure stories where the treasure is on government lands, under buildings or designated 'lost at sea', I'm INTERESTED in those that are not.
Don.....

 

[Tom_in_CA]

harley-man-2, human nature in regards to treasure superstition is very strong. The human brain wants SO HARD to believe (lest you be "left out") that it is easier to believe, than to question or doubt.

Let me give you an example of how this psychology works: A friend of mine was working an old-town sidewalk demolition/tear-out project. He had found a few barbers, a v-nickel, etc... He showed the workers as he made each find, as they were of course curious. Then my friend found some sort of owl-shaped charm, which appeared to be gold, and some sort of jewels for the eyes. As my friend showed the workers his find, he mused to them that it might be gold, with jewels, and an antique (as the sidewalks had covered the ground for 80+ yrs., so presumably anything found would have to be older).

That night, as he cleaned it up, he found that it was merely gold plated, and the "jewels" were just glass. In other words, just old junk costume jewelry.

The next day, my friend was back at the same sidewalk demolition project. This time however, a new worker, who hadn't been there the previous day, saw him detecting. The worker came up to my friend telling him about "some guy who had here yesterday who found a big gold amulet owl thing, with precious jewels in the eyes", etc... Of course my friend immediately recognized that this worker must've been standing around the water cooler, heard these musings, and mis-interpretted things. So he tried to correct the guy, and tell him that the item was junk, and that , in fact, it was he, who was the guy "who had been here the day before". But to no avail, when the worker heard that no such valuable item was found, he assumed therefore, that there must be yet another guy, because certainly, he had heard "first hand" about this, from "eye-witnesses", etc...

I have seen this same phenomenom happen to me too. I might be detecting in a certain city at a demolition site, and have someone come up telling me about "a guy who found handfuls of silver coins" etc... when a building was torn down years earlier, etc... As I listen to the story, it becomes clear that the person they are talking about, is ME, and no, it wasn't "handfuls" of silver coins, but instead, 4 or 5 silver coins, and no, none were worth a fortune, etc.... You see how things get embellished? The human mind wants so hard to believe "lest you be left out". Kind of like the gambling mentality of "what if...??..."

So to apply this pyschology to the treasure legends in dime store books, you have to ask yourself, when reading each of the facts, "how do they/you/we know?" For example, they might say ".... and the safe was never found". Well DUH! I mean, if you found a safe back then, would YOU go blabbing it? Or if you were part of the posse who caught up with the bandits, who's to say you didn't keep the goods, and report back to your superiors "gee boss, the safe wasn't with the bandits when we caught them".

And anything you can read on newspaper microfilm, is only as good as the persons reporting it. Ie.: where did the reporter get his info? He asks! And then you're at the whims of whomever he's quoting. Ie.: "the stolen safe was full of jewels and cash". Well duh, if the store owner is going to get an insurance settlement (or report back to those persons whose stuff he was storing for them in his safe), what is better: to say there was a paper clip in there, or to say it was full of valuables? Examples can go on and on. See?

 

[Saturna]

Another excellent 'real-world' post Tom.

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

I totally agree Tom, That is why I said stories get stretched over years of telling it and maybe about 10% could actually be some facts and the rest of the story a stretched fantasy. As far as many of the gold mine tales, I believe that mabe 50% of those are somewhat truthful, but who really knows.

If I had found a gold mine back in the day and felt I didn't want anyone knowing about it or taking it away from me, or killing me over it, I would have mined just what I needed and kept the rest a secret, some miners did, and some didn't.

I also agree on the time back in the day, that with people not having much money, law enorcement, people who was part of a posse, banker, or others, etc, and caught up with the robbers shortly after the robbery, that they decided to keep the loot for themselves and kill the robbers making claims that they may have buried the loot. I agree on that part.

Even in todays times when cops bust drug dealers and there is a good substantial amount of money and drugs at one location. Then the drug dealer tells the courts he had more money and drugs than the cops claimed on their reports which some cases tend to be true. You get good cops and you got bad cops, just depends on who is in on the action.

Grant, the treasure stories are always good to read and that is just it, for a good read. I still feel that few of them may be true to some extent, it is just a matter if one really found it, took it and said nothing, or is it really lost. I know that treasures like KGC, and all the other tales, one still has to think in the mind of someone living during that time of what they really would have done with it. Burying it doesn't seem logical unless one is to come back for it later in some cases, but stories of transporting it during a life of hard times for someone else doesn't seem many would follow through with it and seek it for their own riches.

 

[RGINN]

I like that Harleyman as that's why we think the government has closed of the north half of the Wichita Mountains. That's where the cave with the iron door is. Surely. Not really. I had a great-uncle who searched southwestern Oklahoma for treasure. Bob Herrins treasure on Flat Top Mountain in particular. I heard stories about the cave with the iron door and various Jesse James treasures from my grandparents when I was little. There seems to be a variation on all the stories and maybe they're based on one thing that actually happened. 17 mule loads of gold. Cave With the Iron Door. Something might have inspired these stories, but they got spread out with retellings.

 

[Oroblanco]

Yes of course there is nothing to all of those stories of lost treasures, lost mines and sunken galleons; it is all made up fiction to sell books; there are no lost treasures to be found. Rather than have to waste your time on such follies, just send me all of your metal detectors, maps, etc and you have my assurance, they will be disposed of properly.
Oroblanco

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

HI Ladies and gentlemen:

A) There are literally thousands of true small treasure stories, as well as quite a few large ones. It is up to you to do your DD, which does not include just reading treasure magazines or books.

B) Most lost mine, and lost treasures stories occurred in the past when much of the US was basically uninhabited, not as it is now. Later parks, and National forests were established, naturally this did not include inhabited areas, but the very areas where these occurrences existed. It is simply a coincidence, not a planned exclusion as such.

A crude, but true example. The Yaqui's attacked a French mule train of bars of Silver. Since they didn't have much time, they hastily buried the bars near a large Cotton wood tree. For many reasons it was never recovered.

Later, one of the grand sons of one of the chiefs that attacked the mule train, decided that he wanted to recovered it, but didn't know how or exactly where anymore, and enlisted me to help him. The area had blossomed into the present city of Obregon in the late 40's & 50's.

After along search, I found some of the original survey maps, one of which showed the old cottonwood tree precisely. Unfortunately it is under the basement of a 4 story building to one side today. They just barely missed it while excavating for the basement and foundations.

When it was buried, there was nothing within miles, it was an uninhabited coastal thorn brush country, now??.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

I agree Real de Tayopa! I believe many stories are true, of course it would take a lot of detective work other than books and tell tale stories.

I know that many of my travels across the U.S., places like Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, S.D., Montana, Utah, etc, just to name a few has some very beautiful country and a lot of wilderness. I look at the government protecting it to keep the beauty, keeping people safe some what from going out too far out into the wilderness, etc.

But on the other hand why is the government actually keeping it to themselves? I know on some federal land people have either had land on it passed down from generations or purchased property in National Forests to build a home and nothing else. I know during the times of events when legends happened with gold, silver, treasures, loot, gold and silver mines, etc. It just seems odd that even if half of them are true, why does it always end up on government land?

I know during those times the government didn't own the land, but is the possible reason Uncle Sam took over the land because of stories and facts of large hoards of buried treasures, gold and silver mines, etc, of large quanities and value and they don't want to look for it themselves nor want anyone else to look for it and could that be the real reason it became government land?

 

[Oroblanco]

Hola amigos,
The govt does seem to grab and lock away many places where there are potential lost treasures; for instance Blackbeard's ship, or several of the lode gold mines in VA (transferred to the Dept of Corrections, believe it or not) and many others, too many to list here. I do not buy that it is all coincidence.
Oroblanco

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Morning Tom -CA: You posted -->I put very little stock in all those "lost treasure" stories. If you ever get a chance to read from treasure mag's back in the 1960s and '70s, that's all they were: Just lost treasure mine lore type stuff
*************
Question Tom, how would you clasify the legendary, lost Jesuit Mine "La Tayopa"?

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Don Jose, no doubt, the minute someone doubts the absolute validity of all the ghost treasure type stories, someone else will come along, and point one out, that turned out to be true, or was found, or whatever. Well gee, of course, some treasures are indeed true, found, etc.... Does that make the others anything less than embellished supersition?

Just saying to have a critical doubtful eye, and not be swept up in the human nature to believe anything ("lest you be left out"). I believe you too saw this psychology first hand many times. In the past you gave some humorous illistrations of how the "he said she said" thing goes, and after 100 yrs. PRESTO! It's iron-clad :P

 

[Oroblanco]

Tom - you were right, there are no such things as lost treasures or lost mines, don't listen to these guys, just send me your metal detectors, maps etc so that temptation will be safely removed! This goes for everyone reading this too.
Roy

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I travelled all around Mexico one summer, upon invite of a Mexican fellow in my city (central CA) who had spun many tales of treasures back in his home towns, "if only someone had a metal detector". And when I pressed for details, the stories were very compelling! And they were even complete with other successful treasure stories, like accidentally found when walls being torn out of old adobes, or floors being installed, etc.... I mean, all the evidence was un-assailable! So I took the plunge, and travelled with him for several weeks through the states of Chihuaha, Durango, etc... We went to several towns where his roots where, way up in the sierra madres, where houses were up to 300 yrs. old! One by one we chased all the leads he'd told me of before we left the USA. And one-by-one, all we found was reams of trash and junk.

As time went on, I began to ask a little more critically about the facts of each lead. Things that had before been "first-hand witness" (ie.: the old lady who saw the men bury the treasure when she was a little girl) turned out to be "he said she said" type stuff. And what really blew my lid, was when a lot of the treasures "certain to be in a cave" were things like "so & so saw a sparkle, or light, or smoke coming from the ground", etc... And even the ones where coins had been recovered from an apparently broken open cache, to which a detector would EASILY pinpoint the mother load: You say "where are those singular coins you told me about?" Well all of the sudden, no one seems to know. It turns out the "coins" were merely someone telling someone, who told someone, etc....

Mind you, in each and every case, they are ABSOLUTELY convinced that these treasures exist, and their sources are absolutely credible, etc.... If you dare doubt them and call them "superstition", you have insulted them. You merely need a detector that goes deeper, or whatever (notice it's never that the treasure isn't there, it's always that it must be deeper).

So after that trip to Mexico, I began to study the themes of all the treasure lore here, like one would find reading old 1960s/70s treasure mags. Asked in the same critical light of "might there be another explanation?" a lot of them had multiple holes. But sure: read in the dreamy world that all us TH'rs have, they seem to be bullet-proof.

Put it this way: I would only search for "treasures" if the info. was first-hand. Not the "he said she said" type lost ghost mines type stuff.

There is a local author in my area, who purposefully takes kernals of historic truth, and weaves treasure and ghost stories out of them. They sell these books in local tourist shops, for example (because there is a lot of historical attractions in my area of CA). Believe it or not, I have run into persons out in the field metal detecting, who strike up conversation like this: "ooohh, have you heard of the treasure that is somewhere in the such & such canyon buried by the pirates??" And as I inquire more deeply, I eventually recognize it as this author's fanciful stories. Naturally, I correct the inquirer, and tell them "it's fiction, woven from this author's interest in this area's history" (yet admitted fiction, if you press him). Strangely, I have had some of these persons insist, "no, it's true. I read it in a book by a noted historian", blah blah. You see how the human mind works? Here's an example of this author's works:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0933818017/

 

[Saturna]

Mind you, in each and every case, they are ABSOLUTELY convinced that these treasures exist, and their sources are absolutely credible, etc.... If you dare doubt them and call them "superstition", you have insulted them.

I have a theory. In the same way that some people can have addictive personalities, some folks may have a 'believing' gene. Often the greatest proponents of treasure fantasies are also the ones who might be conspiracy theory believers, among other things.

As you stated, if you question their belief, they get very offended, very easily.


Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look for some KGC gold, hidden by Jesse James. I think I saw a treasure marker on the grassy knoll.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Tom: I thoroughly agree with you on your Chihuahua trip, this is why you have a thingie called DD.

You posted --> Put it this way: I would only search for "treasures" if the info. was first-hand. Not the "he said she said" type lost ghost mines type stuff.
******************
I personally have recovered treasure that fall precisely in your definition of he - she - they. Actually very few treasures fall into solid data, or first hand information, if they did, they were recovered long ago.

The 8 mule train treasure that I found was precisely that type of treasure ??

Incidentally, you forgot the ones that want to visit a distant, remote relative, so devise a treasure story in that locality he he he

However it is all part of the game. In the 'past' if you wanted a sure thing, you simply invested in a bank etc.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

Like I had said, most of the stories, etc are probably about 10% true if that. I know stories get changed and stretched over times. Even the ones that are somewhat true.

You know if you tell a made up story or even a factual story and tell one eprson and haev them tell another and the other tell another, the context of the story changes by every mouthfull.

Yes, publishing a treasure story sells whether it be true for fiction. The primary ones I am asking about are the ones that are known to be about 50% true that either has been found long ago, or not found at all.