STORIES........

[cactusjumper]

Over the years, I have heard thousands of stories of treasures about the Superstitions. Many were first person accounts. Others were a friend of a friend types. Many were from friends whom I trusted, but had serious reservation about their stories. They were known to stretch the truth....now and then.

Some are known and considered harmless, others are pathological liars and stay well hidden for many years. They hit the Arizona ground lying about their history as well as their families. Some are no longer with us, but their stories are still being told by their friends and people who never knew them in life.

One member of my own family, Obie Stoker, could spin a yarn with the best of them. He was convincing enough to find a number of paying partners to help him in his attempts to open his claim. What made him so convincing was that he believed what he said. Due to injuries sustained in WWII, his mind didn't always sort out facts from fiction. Obie's life was the sort that good adventure books are created from. Thing is, that book could not be written by Obie.

I'm sure that all of you know these kinds of people and have heard their stories over the years. Perhaps some of you might be convinced to retell them here. I will eventually tell a story that came from Ernie Provence before his death.

Good luck,

Joe Ribaudo

 

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[cactusjumper]

Here is a "first person" account I have posted a number of times. There are probably new members who have never seen it.


Postby Joe Ribaudo » Wed May 26, 2010 10:02 pm
Wayne,

Here is part of the story, which I posted back in 2004:
__________________________________________


In March of 1966 I was wishing I was with my Uncle Chuck, and making the trip into the Superstitions as one of what would have been called the "seven guns" on Black Top Mountain by Glenn Magill. Uncle Sam just did not see it my way.

On March 28. 1966 Chuck wrote the following letter:

"Dear Joe,
Well I recieved your letter and was very glad to hear you are all right.
Yes we came back from Arizona, but are leaving to go back the 1st. of April.
The area has change to such an extent you wouldn't recognize it.
Upon ariving at Apache Junct. we continued our way to First Water Ranch
then straight east across West Boulder & East Boulder Canyon, until we came to Needle Canyon, than north for 3/8 mile.
We Camped under some real nice trees with running water 30 yds. away.
There is a cave to the left of our camp site and actual proof that Jacob Weiser & the dutchman were camped there, because we found square nails in the wall.
Well, the next morning we started looking for the elusive gold.
We went south towards Weavers Needle to a spot that would match where the cactus would be, but we couldn't find it. But on the way to this cactus we found a Spanish muleshoe. At this point I was pretty excited & not thinking to straight.

The next morning I & Dr. Phillips made our way up Black Top Mtn. to where the (petroglyphs) Spanish signs were. Well, they were there so I aligned myself to look S/East to the natural stone face marker & there she was.
Well, I told Tom that what we were looking for lay on that line to the stone face marker. But we had to have an idea of where the cactus with the stones would intersect this line.
In the meantime Manual (That would be Manual Salado) had made his way towards us, from way down canyon and just by fluke luck was on the same line that we were on.
Well, anyway he spoted this ridge & made for it, while we were coming down. So he says, hell! don't look anymore I found it. Tom checked it with the detectron and it went ape ****. But I still wanted to find that Cactus Marker, so I stood at the point where the reading was so high & calibrated my compass to find due east and it aligned up to a crevace on Bluff Springs Mtn.
Any how, we started moving rock away and ran smack into Caliche Cement, with no means of breaking through.
I dropped down about 4 feet to come up underneath it, and found a mule shoe carved into the rock. Manual had the torn shoe on his belt so I asked him for it, and layed it down on top of the carving, well it fit to a tee pointing directly to the opening we had made.

After this we left for home, and returned a week later with, what we thought would get in. But to no avail we were stoped. Well with nothing to do & time runing short, I decided to find that Cactus Marker. We went down to a fellow named Al Morrow who has been in there 12 years, digging in a hole, so I asked him. He was real nice & took me to where it used to be, it had been destroyed & in it's place was a rock with carved out circle & 4 lines. Well I layed my compass down and checked the alignment, it was perfect. The west line ran right through where we were working, so I knew that my figures were correct.
Now were going again but with dynamite & drills to pop it open.
Joe we checked the dirt away from the spot, along with the rocks & could get no reading, then we walked up to the spot & the needle went completely off scale on the low intensity scale.
Fisher Laboratories from Palo Alto checked everything we did & how we used the equipment, his finding's were that there was something very big underneath aprox. 6 feet down the size of a car body!!!!
So there you have it.
I checked my compass near the point in question to find if it was iron or possibly a meteorite. These would effect my compass.
Manual says he found it!
Well, I don't know. Maybe he did, but I do know he would never have known where to start or that it even existed. He says it isn't rough & he could find his way from any direction with no provlems. !Quen Sabe!

Well Joe it's time for me to go, so I will close wishing you the best."
__________________________________________________

That's pretty close to what he wrote with only a few lines missing, which have no bearing on the content.

That was Chuck's first meeting with Al Morrow, and they became close friends. Al told Chuck "never go into my claim when it's raining, it's to dangerous". Makes you wonder why Al was in there. Quien Sabe?
__________________________________________________

Even though I have Chucks drawing of how he figured out where he wanted to go from the Cactus Marker, I could never explain it to anyone. My uncle dropped out of grade school and went to work. Later on in his life, he got interested in math and self taught himself out of books. He was very good at it........all the way to advance trigonometry. Chuck was not your usual drop-out.

Hope you found the letter interesting.

Take care,

Joe Ribaudo
______________________

Chuck was a straight shooter and the story is true.



Good luck,

Joe Ribaudo

 

[azdave35]

joe..i know you think old obie was bonkers and he may very well have been...i have another side to his story (i related this story to you at one of the rendezvous)...this story comes from one of the guys obie talked into helping him reopen the tunnel at second water spring...this guy ended up being my mining partner for a while...i sent this to another member via private message so i might as well put it up here...someone might find it interesting....the tunnel obie found was above second water spring and it was called "the question mark"..
.there was also a small earthquake in the 1930's that hit the mountains...a small one but it did some rearranging ...joe ribaudo's uncle uncovered a tunnel by second water spring in 1930 or thereabouts ...he got it uncovered enough to get in it and pull about 10k worth of gold out of it....his name was obie stoker ...obie went back later to get back in the mine and discovered that a small earthquake had hit and collapsed part of the tunnel...he and his wife spent many years trying to dig it out without success...about 300 ft of tunnel had collapsed and it was too much for him and his wife...in 1969 they took on a couple of young partners to help them...they made some progress but soon figured out how much work it was going to be and bailed out of the project...about 10 years later he found two other young guys that agreed to help him...(one of them was my future mining partner)....they actually hired a professional dowser out of Oklahoma to dowse the area...matter of fact he was the top dowser in the country and very well known....the dowser told them it would be better to go uphill above the collapsed part of the tunnel and drill and blast straight down to intersect the tunnel ..the dowser told them they need to shaft 50 ft straight down .the dowser also told them there was a hell of a rich vein of gold down there.....these two guys worked on this for about 4-5 years and got down to the 45 foot level...but time ran out on them and in 1984 the forest service declared the area wilderness and kicked everyone with mining claims out...including bob corbin..(he had claims in there at the time)...they were within 5 ft of their destination but had to call it quits...the govt took all the lumber and trash and threw it down the shaft...now if you ask joe about this he will say his uncle was nuts and there was no gold there...but obie had a receipt where he had sold the gold in tucson for 10 k......one of the guys that blasted the shaft was warren koneman...he saw the receipt and thoroughly believed obie...in the late 80's i was introduced to warren and we became partners on a couple mining projects......to add credence to the story a professional treasure hunter by the name of jonathon burbridge found 7 gold bars right below that tunnel at 2nd water spring...warren also told me that he saw a photo of obie when he was a young lad at roosevelt dam at the opening ceremony...joe might still have this photo if he got any of obie's stuff when he passed...whether obie fibbed to warren and his partner i dont know...but i do know warren believed obie....obie had a receipt where he sold the gold ..warren had his faults but he was not stupid nor was he prone to making up stories...apparently obie had enough proof to convince warren and his partner to waste many years of their young life trying to get back into that tunnel...warren would not have done this if he didn't totally believe what obie told him...this is pretty much the story as it was related to me by warren....take it for what it's worth

 

[sgtfda]

Burbridge's map shows a different area where he found the gold bars

 

[cactusjumper]

joe..i know you think old obie was bonkers and he may very well have been...i have another side to his story (i related this story to you at one of the rendezvous)...this story comes from one of the guys obie talked into helping him reopen the tunnel at second water spring...this guy ended up being my mining partner for a while...i sent this to another member via private message so i might as well put it up here...someone might find it interesting....the tunnel obie found was above second water spring and it was called "the question mark"..
.there was also a small earthquake in the 1930's that hit the mountains...a small one but it did some rearranging ...joe ribaudo's uncle uncovered a tunnel by second water spring in 1930 or thereabouts ...he got it uncovered enough to get in it and pull about 10k worth of gold out of it....his name was obie stoker ...obie went back later to get back in the mine and discovered that a small earthquake had hit and collapsed part of the tunnel...he and his wife spent many years trying to dig it out without success...about 300 ft of tunnel had collapsed and it was too much for him and his wife...in 1969 they took on a couple of young partners to help them...they made some progress but soon figured out how much work it was going to be and bailed out of the project...about 10 years later he found two other young guys that agreed to help him...(one of them was my future mining partner)....they actually hired a professional dowser out of Oklahoma to dowse the area...matter of fact he was the top dowser in the country and very well known....the dowser told them it would be better to go uphill above the collapsed part of the tunnel and drill and blast straight down to intersect the tunnel ..the dowser told them they need to shaft 50 ft straight down .the dowser also told them there was a hell of a rich vein of gold down there.....these two guys worked on this for about 4-5 years and got down to the 45 foot level...but time ran out on them and in 1984 the forest service declared the area wilderness and kicked everyone with mining claims out...including bob corbin..(he had claims in there at the time)...they were within 5 ft of their destination but had to call it quits...the govt took all the lumber and trash and threw it down the shaft...now if you ask joe about this he will say his uncle was nuts and there was no gold there...but obie had a receipt where he had sold the gold in tucson for 10 k......one of the guys that blasted the shaft was warren koneman...he saw the receipt and thoroughly believed obie...in the late 80's i was introduced to warren and we became partners on a couple mining projects......to add credence to the story a professional treasure hunter by the name of jonathon burbridge found 7 gold bars right below that tunnel at 2nd water spring...warren also told me that he saw a photo of obie when he was a young lad at roosevelt dam at the opening ceremony...joe might still have this photo if he got any of obie's stuff when he passed...whether obie fibbed to warren and his partner i dont know...but i do know warren believed obie....obie had a receipt where he sold the gold ..warren had his faults but he was not stupid nor was he prone to making up stories...apparently obie had enough proof to convince warren and his partner to waste many years of their young life trying to get back into that tunnel...warren would not have done this if he didn't totally believe what obie told him...this is pretty much the story as it was related to me by warren....take it for what it's worth

Dave,

Obie was a very soft hearted, confused man. He believed he started the Boxer Rebellion by cutting off the queue, of a rickshaw operator. You may want to Google "Queue". He swore by this story for many years. He was medically disabled from WWI. He tried to enlist for WWII, but was denied at first. Eventually he did get accepted as a ambulance driver. He was again medically disabled suffering from shell shock while working the battlefields of Europe. All according to Obie.

I believe there is some truth in Obie's stories, especially concerning his association with some Hollywood Western stars. I can't elaborate on that at this time. Obie and Olive prospected all over the country, and it's more than possible that they had some gold. $10,000 worth of gold in the 1930s does not seem possible to me.

Obie and Olive came to Second Water by, he says, following Waltz's clues. Originally, the vein was found in a crevice. He ended up going to war, and by the time he got back, an earthquake had filled the crevice with rocks and boulders to large for him to remove. He started the shaft below, trying to intersect the vein in the filled in crevice. As far as I know, there was never any gold taken out of that shaft, no matter what your friend saw. If there was a vein that produced that much gold, back in the 30s, there would be some trace of it still there.

I had, probably, thirty years of close association with Obie. Other than my mother, I doubt anyone alive knew him as well as I did. Stories of the LDM, and massive gold deposits will cloud the minds of many a sober, intelligent man......or woman. In all those years with Obie, he never showed me the receipt you mentioned. Believe me, if he had it, he would have hauled it out on a regular basis for me to see.

Take it for what it's worth.

Take care,

Joe

 

[azdave35]

true joe...i know a few ldm hunters around here that come up with some tall tales but there is usually some truth in their stories....did obie ever show you the pic of him at the dam?...

 

[cactusjumper]

true joe...i know a few ldm hunters around here that come up with some tall tales but there is usually some truth in their stories....did obie ever show you the pic of him at the dam?...

Dave,

Obie had many pictures of himself and Olive, he claimed, were of the two of them. Many were obvious figments of his imagination. If you can get through it, you should take a look at his "manuscript" which I donated to Greg Davis and the museum. I have a copy of the "manuscript".......somewhere.

Take care,

Joe

 

[azdave35]

Dave,

Obie had many pictures of himself and Olive, he claimed, were of the two of them. Many were obvious figments of his imagination. If you can get through it, you should take a look at his "manuscript" which I donated to Greg Davis and the museum. I have a copy of the "manuscript".......somewhere.

Take care,

Joe

joe...i'll see if the museum has a copy that i can read....i have read some of the notes and manuscripts of the local ldm hunters...most of their writings and scribbles are difficult to follow but there is some good info in all of them...you just have to weed through the insanity...lol..the truth be told most treasure hunters are somewhat mentally unstable...also another thing to remember...when they were writing down their thoughts....they were just that..thoughts...most of them had no desire to write a book or manuscript...they wrote down their thoughts for their own personal reference..and the ones that were thinking of turning their thoughts into a book should have hired a professional writer...lol

 

[wrmickel1]

I think all you who listen to told Stories or written are being misguided but one poster here is exactly spot on and that would be
Carrol there's a lot of true to his dads story. There's smelters and crusher in the area and not the one Dave pointed out for sure but he probably walked by them without a second glance, It's the same with the dudes that decifer the maps there all wrong, The circle in a circle is not a mine it's a message to the viewer for a specific meaning as is the box with the cross, The Saint Gardians of the site are still standing, The Saints direct you, Set the direction of travel and the biggest flaw everyone sucked in is the river lines, There is no Rio depicted. The Feldmans, Schooses, Rienharts and all of the others are all wrong, or they are misguiding for a reason. But I don't think that is the case cause I have watched one Feldman ride his horse by me real close. So he must be on to something or another.

wrmickel1

 

[cactusjumper]

I think all you who listen to told Stories or written are being misguided but one poster here is exactly spot on and that would be
Carrol there's a lot of true to his dads story. There's smelters and crusher in the area and not the one Dave pointed out for sure but he probably walked by them without a second glance, It's the same with the dudes that decifer the maps there all wrong, The circle in a circle is not a mine it's a message to the viewer for a specific meaning as is the box with the cross, The Saint Gardians of the site are still standing, The Saints direct you, Set the direction of travel and the biggest flaw everyone sucked in is the river lines, There is no Rio depicted. The Feldmans, Schooses, Rienharts and all of the others are all wrong, or they are misguiding for a reason. But I don't think that is the case cause I have watched one Feldman ride his horse by me real close. So he must be on to something or another.

wrmickel1

wrm,

While searching for the circle in a circle we were at the location of my end of the Stone Map Trail and found this:



It was right where I had drawn it on my topo........many years earlier. Quite the coincidence.

Good luck,

Joe Ribaudo

 

[azdave35]

I think all you who listen to told Stories or written are being misguided but one poster here is exactly spot on and that would be
Carrol there's a lot of true to his dads story. There's smelters and crusher in the area and not the one Dave pointed out for sure but he probably walked by them without a second glance, It's the same with the dudes that decifer the maps there all wrong, The circle in a circle is not a mine it's a message to the viewer for a specific meaning as is the box with the cross, The Saint Gardians of the site are still standing, The Saints direct you, Set the direction of travel and the biggest flaw everyone sucked in is the river lines, There is no Rio depicted. The Feldmans, Schooses, Rienharts and all of the others are all wrong, or they are misguiding for a reason. But I don't think that is the case cause I have watched one Feldman ride his horse by me real close. So he must be on to something or another.

wrmickel1

wow...that is a crushing blow to finally hear that all the experts are wrong...maybe you should swing on down to arizona and show feldman,shoose, clay and the rest of them where they have been wrong and where the mine is..i'm sure they would love to hear your opinion and finally after 150 years that someone has solved the mystery...i guess we can all give up and go look for a different lost mine because this one isn't lost anymore.....what will we do?..how will we act?

 

[audigger53]

How about the story of the cave with the silver statue? My brother heard this one about the guy that was found dying from exposure with a broken leg. He had found a cave with a man sized statue that was black, but when scratched with a knife was silver. Late 50's was the time frame. The man died before he could give directions to the cave. Was it real? No idea but I haven't heard anyone else talk about it here. Supposed to be north of the Peralta Trail head, but that takes in a lot of territory.

 

[wrmickel1]

wow...that is a crushing blow to finally hear that all the experts are wrong...maybe you should swing on down to arizona and show feldman,shoose, clay and the rest of them where they have been wrong and where the mine is..i'm sure they would love to hear your opinion and finally after 150 years that someone has solved the mystery...i guess we can all give up and go look for a different lost mine because this one isn't lost anymore.....what will we do?..how will we act?

Sure would Dave!

Like I said, Not a single one of those mention are experts they spread the yarn as you do! I'd love to go head to head with any
of them, Even Carrol and you for that fact, I said there is sum truth to what was said, Sum,

And I never said I found it yet, but I have found the others and like I said you and all the other EXPERTS walk right by them without notice, quite the group of super sleuths I say. Ahh


Match witt with knit witted Bring it on Baby!

Babymick1

 

[azdave35]

Sure would Dave!

Like I said, Not a single one of those mention are experts they spread the yarn as you do! I'd love to go head to head with any
of them, Even Carrol and you for that fact, I said there is sum truth to what was said, Sum,

And I never said I found it yet, but I have found the others and like I said you and all the other EXPERTS walk right by them without notice, quite the group of super sleuths I say. Ahh View attachment 1463683 View attachment 1463691 View attachment 1463693


Match witt with knit witted Bring it on Baby!

Babymick1[/QUOTE

mick...you know the old saying "it aint over till the fat lady sings"..we have another saying around here...it aint found till you show the gold....and you aint showed no gold...and i dont mean little specks that you have to squint your eyes to see...if you aint got big chunks of gold then you are just like the many that have showed up here lately.,,on the other hand feldman...matthew..clay ..shoose ..kollenborn and me all have exibited ldm quality gold specimens.......show up at the rendezvous with your wild theories and your big chunks of pyrite....we could use a good laugh..and as far as carroll ingle goes...you are not and never will be a patch off him....he was a treasure hunter extraordinaire that found two big treasures that i know of

 

[azdave35]

now back to the subject of treasure stories.....this is one most of you haven't heard.....back in the early 60's a man i knew was on leave from military service...he had a black powder revolver and he decided to go for a ride out in the desert and try a little rabbit hunting with his revolver..he ended up at tortilla flat...parked his car and took off walking toward the supers down a wash...he was shooting at a rabbit and the rabbit disappeared behind a big clump of bushes at the base of a small cliff...he pulled the bushes back and there was a small opening behind the bush at the base of the cliff....he got on his hands and knees and crawled into the opening...after a short distance he could stand up..he was in a cave...all he had for light was a cigarette lighter but he saw an old wood box at the back of the cave....he said it had a hasp and padlock on it..he got down on his all fours again..took the butt end of the revolver and tried to beat the lock from the box...the box was pretty rotten and he got the lock off and got it open...he said it had what he called weiner sacks full of gold dust...(long skinny bags about the size of a hot dog)...also some coins and pocket watches...about that time he felt something cold and wet on his leg.....he reached down and his calf was quite wet...he feared he was bitten by a rattler so he scrambled out of the cave and when he looked down at his leg it was covered in blood...panic set in and he tried to figure what had happened...then he remembered hearing a loud noise in the cave about the same time he was beating on the lock with his gun...coupled with the excitement over finding the stagecoach box he didnt realize it was a gunshot...as he was hitting the lock with the gun butt..the black powder pistol had discharged and the ball went through his lower leg...he knew he had to get to a doc fast..but he couldn't resist filling his pockets with some of the weiner sacks....then it was off to the doc....he was laid up for a while with the gunshot wound and as soon as he healed up it was off to the military for him ...he made plans to go back to the cave as soon as he got his next leave but when he got back things had changed and he was unable to find that cave again...rains has fueled the growth of bushes and weeds and nothing looked the same...so he went back to the military and waited till his discharge..he looked for years and finally gave up the search..one of my old prospecting partners met this man in the late 70's and he told the tale to my friend...he looked for it off and on....he told me about it in the 80's and we looked for it together.....i met the man that found the cave and heard the story from him a few years later...he even showed us the scar where the bullet went in and exited his leg....there was an outlaw that operated in that area and if i remember correctly his name was hacksaw tom...we always figured he was the one that put the box in the cave..

 

[wrmickel1]

Dave,

Those spec's lead to the Mother Load! And they come from the interior of the Wilderness Area, Now I believe your big clunkers never found any gold there. So import a big chunk from one place and say it's from the Supers is more common then someone claiming they found the LDM. You must have jumped on the Ryan Train �� in my absence WHOO WHOO
I'll bring the sTEAM HEET!

UNLESS RON HAS A TRADE MARK ON DAT!

Babymick1

 

[azdave35]

Dave,

Those spec's lead to the Mother Load! And they come from the interior of the Wilderness Area, Now I believe your big clunkers never found any gold there. So import a big chunk from one place and say it's from the Supers is more common then someone claiming they found the LDM. You must have jumped on the Ryan Train �� in my absence WHOO WHOO
I'll bring the sTEAM HEET!

UNLESS RON HAS A TRADE MARK ON DAT!

Babymick1

aye mcgregor...its the mother load....wait a minute?...aren't you the drunk guy that was singing "tie my pecker to a tree" on youtube?
this is joe's thread and its about treasure stories..if you have one then let's have it..otherwise start your own thread

 

[wrmickel1]

Ok, I'll Bite

The ledgen's of Native American's witnessed the Spanish filling a peek full of treasure. Yet two treasure teams blew and dug the place a new black hole and found nothing. Now if the Natives are wrong on what they seen then it makes sense.
Then why do the Peralta Maps depict it! The start of the maps, is the bank that was filled.



Do you see the line, 2 equals 3. Now find the 1 if your treasure experts can crack it I just gave them the bank



I hope this young lady don't mind me useing her photo but Dave have your expert zoom in on the right to lone tree point and take a gander at the four humps the'll match the line, the 3rd hump with the so called mine symbol, oh yeah the line is a river by the experts. Not So, Don't go rushing for the hump it's not there you must find the 1 to review the true site.

you better have a good map reader and some good boots your gonna need them, better be in good shape to or you'll join the dark side of the Ledgen's Dave and his Experts!

Now I believe I gave more on this form then you or anyone ever so it's my word I'll be Trusting for now on!

Babymick1

 

[azdave35]

 

[wrmickel1]

Well Dave,

I do know where the bank is, And it's never been opened, and I believe Carrol's dad passed by it many times.
So bring the Experts into it, let's make it a all for one and one for all, but nobody's taking the high five for solving the maps but ME!

Babymick1