Mine with the Iron Door The Legend

[Azquester]

Mine with the Iron Door Legend from the Santa Catalina Range just to the north and above Tucson.
This Legend has been around a few centuries with many versions. I have quite a lot on this legend if anyone else has any material to post this the place.







View attachment 1130884

 

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[Azquester]

Here's some links to the few movies they've made about the legend one in 1924 a silent film and the other a talkie in 1936.

The Mine with the Iron Door (1924) - IMDb

The Mine with the Iron Door (1936) - Literature

 

[Culinary Caveman]

So tell us about this legend Bill.

 

[motel6.5]

Karl Von Muller had a story about finding a Iron door blocking a cave entrance high above the Colorado river in Arizona. He also stated he found some mummies in another cave along with a few Spanish artifacts.

 

[sdcfia]

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...e+with+the+iron+door+site:www.treasurenet.com

One guy has noted "Mines With Iron Doors" in 15 locations, including the Catalinas - and even in Oklahoma. "Spanish gold", you know. A couple things ought to come to mind. One: where did all those Spanish iron doors come from? Did the "Spanish" bring them all the way up from Mexico, then lug them all over the southwest, even to the top of the Catalinas, just in case they discovered a fabulously rich mine during their travels? Or did they discover the mine, then order a door from Seville? Maybe they built the thing on site - with all the iron door parts they had with them.

Two: if you found a "Mine With An Iron Door", with a "big old-fashioned lock" on it, what's the first thing you'd do? How about prying the lock off and going inside? Or pry the whole door off if necessary? Oh, I forgot - the finder went to get tools and the place became "lost" and "was never found again".

Wake up.

 

[Hitndahed]

Karl Von Muller had a story about finding a Iron door blocking a cave entrance high above the Colorado river in Arizona. He also stated he found some mummies in another cave along with a few Spanish artifacts.

=====================================================
Motel6.5,,,
I really believe you are combining 2 or more old legends here. Not intentionally though.

Well there actually are more than one legend bearing this name.
One is from Oklahoma I think And at least one more is told of being in Idaho.
As well as the others in the 4 corners states.

Just an observation

Hit

 

[motel6.5]

Hit, now that you bring it up the Iron door or Grate was in Arizona,I believe it went across the entrance embedded into each side of the inside of the cave entrance. Muller did show photos of some Spanish relics he retrieved. The mummies I think he and his partner located in a cave in Colorado.
Srgt, as we all know at 1 time the Colorado river was higher in its water level than it is now. If the early Spanish explorers could manage to produce Gold and Silver bars in the middle of no-where with-out modern tools, then I"m sure they would be able to make iron bars which they some-way fused together.-

 

[sdcfia]

Hit, now that you bring it up the Iron door or Grate was in Colorado,I believe it went across the entrance embedded into each side of the inside of the cave entrance. Muller did show photos of some Spanish relics he retrieved. The mummies I think he and his partner located in a cave in Colorado.
Srgt, as we all know at 1 time the Colorado river was higher in its water level than it is now. If the early Spanish explorers could manage to produce Gold and Silver bars in the middle of no-where with-out modern tools, then I"m sure they would be able to make iron bars which they some-way fused together.-

I believe most if not all the iron door discoveries, if real and not imagined, have been either closed and secured Anglo mines, or bat habitat grills - all dating from ca 1900 to the present.

 

[Azquester]

There's a lot of stories floating around about this legend. It seems to cover many area's of different states. Maybe they all have something in common? I'll see if I can address that as we go. Right now you could grab the book by Harold Bell Wright and read it.
Lets explore the reasons The Iron Door Mine legend has so many ties. I see ties to the Peralta Stones Maps for instance.

Possible ties to Jacob Waltz and the Lost Dutchman. A lot of what I heard down here is connected to Twin Tunnels of gold. Picture to tunnels where you have gold all the way around you twin corridor's lined with almost pure Gold!

A young boy found the Door back I believe in the 1930's. The story goes he was hiking and was a bit of a rock climber. He found a stairway leading up to a large rock. Behind the rock he found the stairs leading down to a large iron door. It had Blunderbusses leaning against the side with the wooded stocks rotted off. The door had a huge padlock larger than anything he had ever seen.
The boy had never heard of the story so he just went on climbing and continued to explore. That was right when he became lost.

After wandering for a few days search parties were about to give up when the boy stumbled out of Catalina State Park and they found him. During his father's questioning he disclosed he had stumbled upon an old Mine with a padlock. After telling his Father what it looked like they went to another relative to see where he might have been and who owned it as the might be interested in the old guns. The Boy and his Father were both just visiting relatives from back east and knew nothing about the legend.

Once they told their story to the local all hell broke loose. They formed an expedition and searched for the area the boy had climbed for almost a year. Some say the one relative spent the rest of his life searching but never found it!


That's just one I have a few others I'll tell later.

Got to get to work now.

 

[motel6.5]

Srgt, Metalurgy dates back 10"s of thousands of years, its very old rocket science . Looks like in the 1700"s the Jesuits placed a Iron plaque in a rock wall at the back of a Bat cave in Arizona only accessable by a elongated hanging ladder.

 

[sdcfia]

There's a lot of stories floating around about this legend. It seems to cover many area's of different states. Maybe they all have something in common? I'll see if I can address that as we go. Right now you could grab the book by Harold Bell Wright and read it.
Lets explore the reasons The Iron Door Mine legend has so many ties. I see ties to the Peralta Stones Maps for instance.

Possible ties to Jacob Waltz and the Lost Dutchman. A lot of what I heard down here is connected to Twin Tunnels of gold. Picture to tunnels where you have gold all the way around you twin corridor's lined with almost pure Gold!

A young boy found the Door back I believe in the 1930's. The story goes he was hiking and was a bit of a rock climber. He found a stairway leading up to a large rock. Behind the rock he found the stairs leading down to a large iron door. It had Blunderbusses leaning against the side with the wooded stocks rotted off. The door had a huge padlock larger than anything he had ever seen.
The boy had never heard of the story so he just went on climbing and continued to explore. That was right when he became lost.

After wandering for a few days search parties were about to give up when the boy stumbled out of Catalina State Park and they found him. During his father's questioning he disclosed he had stumbled upon an old Mine with a padlock. After telling his Father what it looked like they went to another relative to see where he might have been and who owned it as the might be interested in the old guns. The Boy and his Father were both just visiting relatives from back east and knew nothing about the legend.

Once they told their story to the local all hell broke loose. They formed an expedition and searched for the area the boy had climbed for almost a year. Some say the one relative spent the rest of his life searching but never found it!


That's just one I have a few others I'll tell later.

Got to get to work now.

Yes, there is a common thread with the lost-mine-with-the-iron-door stories - most all of them surfaced in the period 1920-1940, mostly in the 1930s. And so did a large number of other treasure stories that appeared in books, magazines and newspapers in this era. The themes are remarkably similar in these stories, most of which have absolutely no verifiable facts supporting them. They are believed today because you've heard them all your life and then, well, they must be true.

 

[Hitndahed]

There's a lot of stories floating around about this legend. It seems to cover many area's of different states. Maybe they all have something in common? I'll see if I can address that as we go. Right now you could grab the book by Harold Bell Wright and read it.
Lets explore the reasons The Iron Door Mine legend has so many ties. I see ties to the Peralta Stones Maps for instance.

Possible ties to Jacob Waltz and the Lost Dutchman. A lot of what I heard down here is connected to Twin Tunnels of gold. Picture to tunnels where you have gold all the way around you twin corridor's lined with almost pure Gold!

A young boy found the Door back I believe in the 1930's. The story goes he was hiking and was a bit of a rock climber. He found a stairway leading up to a large rock. Behind the rock he found the stairs leading down to a large iron door. It had Blunderbusses leaning against the side with the wooded stocks rotted off. The door had a huge padlock larger than anything he had ever seen.
The boy had never heard of the story so he just went on climbing and continued to explore. That was right when he became lost.

After wandering for a few days search parties were about to give up when the boy stumbled out of Catalina State Park and they found him. During his father's questioning he disclosed he had stumbled upon an old Mine with a padlock. After telling his Father what it looked like they went to another relative to see where he might have been and who owned it as the might be interested in the old guns. The Boy and his Father were both just visiting relatives from back east and knew nothing about the legend.

Once they told their story to the local all hell broke loose. They formed an expedition and searched for the area the boy had climbed for almost a year. Some say the one relative spent the rest of his life searching but never found it!


That's just one I have a few others I'll tell later.

Got to get to work now.

==============================================================================
Well I would just line them all up,,,see what they have in common with each other to begin..
Then start picking out the obvious duplicates,,,Then the REAL work starts,,, like all the genealogies, written accounts (if any),,

What am I telling you this for Bill ? You know how it's done,,,I'm learning how to do "it" from all you seasoned and experienced THers,,, HAHAHAHAHA

Anxious for more
Hit

 

[Azquester]

Yes, there is a common thread with the lost-mine-with-the-iron-door stories - most all of them surfaced in the period 1920-1940, mostly in the 1930s. And so did a large number of other treasure stories that appeared in books, magazines and newspapers in this era. The themes are remarkably similar in these stories, most of which have absolutely no verifiable facts supporting them. They are believed today because you've heard them all your life and then, well, they must be true.

Yes they all did. Right about the time Harold Bell Wright was publishing his book! Tucson was the first that sparked those other stories. I believe the story to be older then 1847. I know old Flint Carter has some history at his museum that pre-dates that history.
I also have documents yes historic documents that show the direct connection with the Iron Door and the Lost Mission Vista of Ciru as told by the real Indiana Jones Donald Page Arizona's first and only Archaeologist from that era. He was also the Director of the National Parks here in Az. Boy has that changed since then. But just to dispel any that might say hey I know of one of them well I don't think it can be older then the one in Tucson with all the actual history documented representation.

 

[Azquester]

Another story that surfaces is the one of the great, great, great, great, great Grandfather of two brothers that made their way out here in 1847-1848 some where around that time. They were on their way to the California rush when they decided to stop and look for the mine in the Santa Catalina range here north of Tucson. After months of looking they hit the mother load! After coming down to Tucson and gathering more supplies showing off the rich ore from the dump pile they made their way back up to there new found site.

A few weeks went by while they cleared the entrances to the mines, yes mines, two tunnels of solid Gold they were attacked at dawn by Apaches. They fought for three longs days until their ammo was running low. The one of them took an arrow to the heart killing him instantly!

The other brother for fear of his life ran as fast as could and made his way through Apache country back down the mountain into Tucson.

After a few days he returned fully armed and retrieved his brothers body and buried it. He took the ore he had and went on to California's gold rush country. He never talked about the incident much but later he made a Map and gave to his family.

That's where Ron Quinn comes into play. Ron being a known Treasure Hunter received a series of letters from the grandson many removed of the brothers that had fought the Indians over the Iron Door Mine and lost one sibling in the process. Ron and a close friend spent over six months I believe up there with his friends family searching for the one clue that they needed for finding the Rich Gold Mine.

That clue was an old prospect marked with a simple rock pile. They never found it.

2003

I received a series of Maps from Ron and talked my brother in law Roger into a trip at the highest point down from the top of the Catalina Mountain range. We started out one October morning it was clear and the forecast was for sunny sky's.

We started very early I had a Mine Lab Explorer 2500 packed in my backpack and we both had extra water with food enough for a few days. I packed emergency supplies just in case it happened to rain or we were stranded. I would say about 50 lb's of gear each.

The top is about 9500 feet so we parked on a ledge behind the radio towers so we could hide our vehicle from any thieves.

The hike down was pretty easy we never gave it any thought about the dangers we were in pretty fit shape and the trip seemed simple enough.

As we made are way down the trail we stopped and looked at the series of Maps that had been sent to old Ron Quinn and something stood out. The man that was sending Ron the letters and Maps was telling them just where the mine was but somehow they were going in the wrong direction!

I used dead reckoning and said if this is true and that is not then this has to be the way to the old prospect that they never found!

I told Roger I was going off the trail searching for the old Prospect that many others had failed to find even with the Maps they had it was never located in all those months of searching.

I took off cross country leaving my brother Roger with a radio we had for communication.

About an hour later I was ready to give up and told Roger I was heading back his way. I turned to go and fell about six feet down right into that Old Prospect with the pile of rocks!

It was there under the weeds covered with brush and you could not see it unless you were on top of it!

After that we continued our searching while following the clues told in the Letter Maps. It wasn't long before we
Hit another clue. An old abandoned Indian Turquoise Mine!

From that point we knew we were close. So we split up and I went on way with a electronic searching device and my in-law Roger went the other. It was at just that point the search made a turn for the worst! I was getting a signal when a storm of Ice moved in and the temperature dropped by 50 degrees and it started raining solid pieces of ice about as big as a 22 bullet!

Then I heard someone talking baby talk yes baby talk!

I looked up over the hill and mind you we were out in the middle of no where off trail and down in a gorge. It was a young Forest Ranger with non other than a total of two small Poodles! Yes Poodles!

I said WTF?

I sent Roger up there to see who it was and told him " Please don't tell him we're searching for the Iron Door Please!

He when up there and came back and told me the Ranger had said: "You'll find the Mine with the Iron Door over that Ridge to the North"!

I said " I told you not to tell him!!"

Roger said "I didn't he just bellowed it out when I walked up with a stone cold deer in the headlights sort of look"!

Roger also said " He told me if we wanted a ride out of this place he'll be up the pass at the summit road and could give us a ride is his jeep as regular folk couldn't drive down the roads he could. He also said the Ranger told him "I was looking for my wife she's out here somewhere and I can't find her".

Continued..







To be continued.

 

[sdcfia]

Well, it sounds like you're writing a treasure magazine story. That's cool, but I wouldn't take just your word or anyone else's on the veracity of the MWTID without seeing some sort of hard evidence to support it. I just finished reading an article in Outside Magazine featuring your Flynt Carter. The writer and a geologist put him on a horse, doped him up and followed what sounds like the same route you described from the top of Mt Lemmon down to the upper stretches of Canon del Oro to some old mines and crude shelter foundations there - likely from the Anglo era. They did find some decent ore samples in the area, but no caves of gold, iron doors or anything else that can't be found in a thousand other locations in a thousand other canyons in the southwest. Like you said, this stuff is for the benefit of the Indiana Jones-type adventure story fans.

 

[motel6.5]

Mr.sdcfia, Prove the Iron doors or Iron Grates Do Not Exist and are just writers whims, and I will buy into your very thin and weak un-proven theorys that they don"t exist. Until then myself and thousands of other treasure hunters will believe otherwise. For some individuals in the treasure hunting community Ignorance is Bliss.

 

[sdcfia]

Mr.sdcfia, Prove the Iron doors or Iron Grates Do Not Exist and are just writers whims, and I will buy into your very thin and weak un-proven theorys that they don"t exist. Until then myself and thousands of other treasure hunters will believe otherwise. For some individuals in the treasure hunting community Ignorance is Bliss.

Ha ha ... couldn't have said it better.

If you'll read the previous posts, you'll see that I acknowledged that there were many iron doors, grates, etc. that covered old adits and shafts, and that they dated from about the early 1900s forward. When many working mines were shut down during this period due to slumping metals prices, they were expected to be reopened when metals prices rebounded. The mine owners sealed the entrances to protect the equipment they left inside. Some, not many, still exist in this condition. Later, with new laws, many states buried abandoned mine adits and/or collapsed shaft collars to protect the public from hazards on public lands. In some cases, they installed grates, bars, grills, etc. instead, because the old mines had become bat habitats and the laws required both habitat access for the bats and hazard protection for people.

If you believe the MWTID stories - "Spanish" or "Jesuit" lost mines - fine. It's not my job to prove those stories are bogus. It's your job to prove the stories are true. I'll save you some trouble: there is no evidence on your side, just treasure magazine stories.

 

[Azquester]

sdcfia, motel6.5,

I guess I'll have to post the Maps proving my story. I was going to anyway just haven't had time to find and scan them. There's three or four I believe. I never tell a story that's fiction unless I say it's fiction.

Old Flynts a character but I don't subscribe to his theories on the Legend.

Like always I blaze my own trail.

I haven't finished the story yet I had to go to bed last night I was wiped out. If your wondering if the story I posted is true why yes it is I did go on this hunt using the Maps I was given. Yes I did find the prospect they couldn't find by falling in it. And yes my Brother in Law was with me on the trip.

You'll like the ending though.

Another tip the Iron Door refers to the symbol of a Horseshoe which of course upside down it makes a door symbol and it's made of Iron.

The Mine of the Iron Horse Shoe!

PS This all ties in with the Stone Horse Map they used a form of mining called Horse.

 

[Azquester]

Like I promised one of the few Treasure Maps showing the location of the Iron Door Mine. This is the person that claimed to have a long deceased relative that left him the map. He went there searched for sometime then found the mine but his Wife told him she didn't believe him and was moving out. He left and went back home with a huge chunk of Ore but his wife said no more Treasure Hunting!

This Map has no written directions other than the ones you can barely make out. It was given to me with the intent of my searching for it which I did.








View attachment 1132771

 

[sdcfia]

Like I promised one of the few Treasure Maps showing the location of the Iron Door Mine. This is the person that claimed to have a long deceased relative that left him the map. He went there searched for sometime then found the mine but his Wife told him she didn't believe him and was moving out. He left and went back home with a huge chunk of Ore but his wife said no more Treasure Hunting!

This Map has no written directions other than the ones you can barely make out. It was given to me with the intent of my searching for it which I did.








View attachment 1132771

It's interesting and possibly does lead to an ore source in Canon de Oro - who knows? As I mentioned earlier, a couple guys were up there recently for a magazine article and brought back ore samples from that area. Ore samples and caves of gold are two different animals. There's a thousand sources of ore samples all over the west - most of them aren't economically viable. This map is modern, obviously. Where's the map from the 1848 brothers? Where's a photo of the MWTID securing the cave of gold?