A true Lost Dutchman legend.

[Matthew Roberts]

Photo of Walter Gassler taken 1935.


Walter Karl Gassler’s 50-year search for the Lost Dutchman Goldmine ended tragically 34 years ago on May 4, 1984 when he was found dead in the Superstition Mountains. Walter was a true legend of the Superstitions. He hiked and camped, searched and dug and survived for half a century using nothing but a topo map, his energy and his instincts.


The debate continues today over how he died. Was it by natural causes, or had someone contributed to his death. Walter’s story of his life-long search was chronicled in 1989 on the television show Unsolved Mysteries.


Walter Gassler was born in Switzerland and came to New York city in the 1920’s. He traveled west to Los Angeles where he was employed as a master chef. His life-long passion was searching for lost treasure in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.


Walter learned everything he could about the Lost Dutchman gold mine and its owner, Jacob Waltz. He spent considerable time in the Bancroft Library in Berkley California and other repositories of books and documents, reading everything he could find about Waltz and the lost mine legend and tales.


He spent time in the Superstition Mountains in the late 1920's before he resided in Arizona, making annual treks into the mountains searching for Waltz's lost mine. When he came to Arizona to settle he spent considerable time at Tex Barkley's Quarter Circle U ranch on the edge of the Superstition Mountains and became close friends with Barkley and his family.



One day at the Quarter Circle U ranch Walter and Tex Barkley were talking and Barkley told Walter a strange and intriguing story. He confessed to Walter that in 1931 he had found the body of Adolph Ruth, a missing prospector, on Peters Mesa. Barkley went on to say he and one of his wranglers, Tom Dickens, transported Ruth’s body off the Mesa and left it in a canyon where it was eventually found on the northeast side of Black Top Mesa.


According to Walter, Tex gave conflicting reasons for doing this. He told Walter he moved the body because he didn’t want hordes of people swarming all over his cattle range scattering his herd but also said that he had found a map on Ruth and with some friends followed that map to a cave marked on that map that was supposed to be the key to finding the lost mine. Barkley said this cave was located somewhere north of Peters Mesa. Once at the cave however, Barkley and the others were unable to locate the mine.


Tex Barkley went on to tell Walter that if he were to find the lost mine it would be somewhere in the vicinity of that cave and encouraged Walter to keep searching the area.


Walter continued his searching whenever time allowed him a few days away from work and family. He established a camp on Peters Mesa in a thick Laurel grove of trees on the west side of the Mesa. Walter’s camp was well hidden in that Laurel grove and unless you knew it was in that grove you would never guess it was there.


After an absence of several years from the Superstition Mountains Walter Gassler renewed his search for the Lost Dutchman Mine in the twilight of his years. Walter was now 80 and had written a 70-page manuscript that told the story of his 50-year search for the lost mine. Walter had located a mine that he believed to be the Lost Dutchman and had contacted a Los Angeles author and film-maker named Robert Lee. He corresponded with Lee for several months and Lee planned to make a documentary of Walter’s manuscript. All that remained for Walter to do was prove his mine was the Lost Dutchman. To accomplish that, Walter needed to claim the mine and collect samples of ore from the site.


So at the age of 80 Walter went back into the Superstition Mountains. His first trip back to his old camp in the Laurel grove ended badly. Walter realized he was in no condition to hike the mountains as he once had. He came back out of the Superstitions that time without realizing his goal. At this point, he knew he needed help to claim his mine and finish the work for Lee’s documentary.


One of the things that prompted Walter to hurry his claim was the Superstition Wilderness deadline. On January 1, 1984, the area of Walter’s mine became Wilderness and he would lose all rights to his find unless he filed on it before midnight of December 31, 1983.


It was the fall of 1983 when Walter contacted me and asked me for help. My camp on Peters Mesa was very near Walter’s camp and Walter always had access to my water, food and equipment I had cached on the Mesa whenever he was in the mountains. Walter asked me to go into the mountains and put up his claim monuments before the December 31st deadline. With the corner and center claim monuments erected Walter could go to the courthouse in Phoenix and file the claim papers with the recorder and everything would be legal. Walter supplied me with his topographic map which had the mine location marked and how he wanted the claim laid out. Then he filled out the claim location paper and gave it to me to put in a glass jar at the center monument of his claim.


I was able to put up Walter’s claim markers just before Christmas of 1983. I also took a few ore samples from the site as Walter had asked me to do.


In April of 1984 Walter at last felt he was able to make the hike into his mine to take samples for himself and photograph the mine for Lee’s documentary. At that time however a dangerous and troublesome individual, Crazy Jake Jacob, was causing a lot of trouble in Walter’s area and Walter did not want to have problems with Jake or Jake’s hired men. Walter contacted the Tonto National Forest office at Mesa and asked about Crazy Jakes activities. The Mesa Forest Service told him that Crazy Jake was indeed camped in the area and to avoid him and use extreme caution around him.


Robert Lee had told Walter it would be advisable for him to take someone into the mountains with him that would be a reliable witness to Walter’s claim of finding the Lost Dutchman Mine. Someone of integrity and well known throughout Arizona who would vouch for Walters claim.


In April of 1984 Walter approached two such men, one a former Arizona State official and the other a part time author and asked each of them if they would accompany him into the Superstitions to see his discoveries. Both men flatly refused his requests.


So on Monday April 30, 1984, Walter Gassler made his final trek into the Superstition Mountains alone. Five days later, on Friday May 4, 1984 two Apache Junction men on horseback came upon Walter Gassler sitting on a rock along the Peter's Mesa trail above Charley-Boy spring. Walter was dead and further up the trail were several armed men milling around looking down on the scene. The two riders identified the men above as some of Crazy Jakes hired men. Not wanting to become involved with Jake or his men neither rider dismounted.


Neither rider knew who Walter Gassler was and speculated the man’s death may have been due to some kind of confrontation between Jakes men and the deceased. Realizing they could do nothing for the dead man, both riders hurriedly turned around and left the scene to report the death to the authorities.


When a Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene to investigate, he found Walter as the two riders had found him. It appeared to him Walter had died of a heart attack and later the Pinal County coroner confirmed that fact although no autopsy was performed.

Walter Gassler was found perched atop a small rock with no backing, almost like a person sitting on a small bar stool seat. At the time, it struck the Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy how a man could suffer the acute pain of a heart attack and die while perched upon such a small rock without falling off. The deputy noted that had the wind been blowing that day it would have blown the man off his perch. It seemed almost as if the deceased had been propped up on that rock in a sitting position by someone.


Among Walter’s possessions that he had with him at his death was a backpack that was reported to have contained some gold ore. Ore that Walter had most probably collected from his mine. Somehow that backpack with the ore went missing as did other items of Walter’s when someone pretending to be Walter’s son requested he be given his father’s map and possessions. No one has ever learned who the man who claimed to be Walter’s son was.


After Walter’s death a television documentary was done on Walter Gassler and his discovery but it wasn’t the documentary Walter and Robert Lee had planned. The television show Unsolved Mysteries did a one hour nationwide broadcast on the events surrounding Walter’s life long search and ultimate death in the Superstition Mountains.


Sadly, Robert Lee died in Los Angeles not long after Walter’s death and all hope for the Lee-Gassler documentary died with him. Walter Gassler did leave behind his manuscript which is a fascinating story of his search and a look into the way things were in the Superstitions in the 1930’s through the 1980’s. That manuscript can be found at the Superstition Mountain Museum in Apache Junction.


Walter Gassler will always be remembered as a good friend and one of the legendary characters of the Superstition Mountains and the search for the Lost Dutchman Goldmine.

 

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[Terry Soloman]

Just another guy that threw his money and life away looking for something that was never there.

 

[azdave35]

View attachment 1586054

Photo of Walter Gassler taken 1935.


Walter Karl Gassler’s 50-year search for the Lost Dutchman Goldmine ended tragically 34 years ago on May 4, 1984 when he was found dead in the Superstition Mountains. Walter was a true legend of the Superstitions. He hiked and camped, searched and dug and survived for half a century using nothing but a topo map, his energy and his instincts.


The debate continues today over how he died. Was it by natural causes, or had someone contributed to his death. Walter’s story of his life-long search was chronicled in 1989 on the television show Unsolved Mysteries.


Walter Gassler was born in Switzerland and came to New York city in the 1920’s. He traveled west to Los Angeles where he was employed as a master chef. His life-long passion was searching for lost treasure in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.


Walter learned everything he could about the Lost Dutchman gold mine and its owner, Jacob Waltz. He spent considerable time in the Bancroft Library in Berkley California and other repositories of books and documents, reading everything he could find about Waltz and the lost mine legend and tales.


He spent time in the Superstition Mountains in the late 1920's before he resided in Arizona, making annual treks into the mountains searching for Waltz's lost mine. When he came to Arizona to settle he spent considerable time at Tex Barkley's Quarter Circle U ranch on the edge of the Superstition Mountains and became close friends with Barkley and his family.



One day at the Quarter Circle U ranch Walter and Tex Barkley were talking and Barkley told Walter a strange and intriguing story. He confessed to Walter that in 1931 he had found the body of Adolph Ruth, a missing prospector, on Peters Mesa. Barkley went on to say he and one of his wranglers, Tom Dickens, transported Ruth’s body off the Mesa and left it in a canyon where it was eventually found on the northeast side of Black Top Mesa.


According to Walter, Tex gave conflicting reasons for doing this. He told Walter he moved the body because he didn’t want hordes of people swarming all over his cattle range scattering his herd but also said that he had found a map on Ruth and with some friends followed that map to a cave marked on that map that was supposed to be the key to finding the lost mine. Barkley said this cave was located somewhere north of Peters Mesa. Once at the cave however, Barkley and the others were unable to locate the mine.


Tex Barkley went on to tell Walter that if he were to find the lost mine it would be somewhere in the vicinity of that cave and encouraged Walter to keep searching the area.


Walter continued his searching whenever time allowed him a few days away from work and family. He established a camp on Peters Mesa in a thick Laurel grove of trees on the west side of the Mesa. Walter’s camp was well hidden in that Laurel grove and unless you knew it was in that grove you would never guess it was there.


After an absence of several years from the Superstition Mountains Walter Gassler renewed his search for the Lost Dutchman Mine in the twilight of his years. Walter was now 80 and had written a 70-page manuscript that told the story of his 50-year search for the lost mine. Walter had located a mine that he believed to be the Lost Dutchman and had contacted a Los Angeles author and film-maker named Robert Lee. He corresponded with Lee for several months and Lee planned to make a documentary of Walter’s manuscript. All that remained for Walter to do was prove his mine was the Lost Dutchman. To accomplish that, Walter needed to claim the mine and collect samples of ore from the site.


So at the age of 80 Walter went back into the Superstition Mountains. His first trip back to his old camp in the Laurel grove ended badly. Walter realized he was in no condition to hike the mountains as he once had. He came back out of the Superstitions that time without realizing his goal. At this point, he knew he needed help to claim his mine and finish the work for Lee’s documentary.


One of the things that prompted Walter to hurry his claim was the Superstition Wilderness deadline. On January 1, 1984, the area of Walter’s mine became Wilderness and he would lose all rights to his find unless he filed on it before midnight of December 31, 1983.


It was the fall of 1983 when Walter contacted me and asked me for help. My camp on Peters Mesa was very near Walter’s camp and Walter always had access to my water, food and equipment I had cached on the Mesa whenever he was in the mountains. Walter asked me to go into the mountains and put up his claim monuments before the December 31st deadline. With the corner and center claim monuments erected Walter could go to the courthouse in Phoenix and file the claim papers with the recorder and everything would be legal. Walter supplied me with his topographic map which had the mine location marked and how he wanted the claim laid out. Then he filled out the claim location paper and gave it to me to put in a glass jar at the center monument of his claim.


I was able to put up Walter’s claim markers just before Christmas of 1983. I also took a few ore samples from the site as Walter had asked me to do.


In April of 1984 Walter at last felt he was able to make the hike into his mine to take samples for himself and photograph the mine for Lee’s documentary. At that time however a dangerous and troublesome individual, Crazy Jake Jacob, was causing a lot of trouble in Walter’s area and Walter did not want to have problems with Jake or Jake’s hired men. Walter contacted the Tonto National Forest office at Mesa and asked about Crazy Jakes activities. The Mesa Forest Service told him that Crazy Jake was indeed camped in the area and to avoid him and use extreme caution around him.


Robert Lee had told Walter it would be advisable for him to take someone into the mountains with him that would be a reliable witness to Walter’s claim of finding the Lost Dutchman Mine. Someone of integrity and well known throughout Arizona who would vouch for Walters claim.


In April of 1984 Walter approached two such men, one a former Arizona State official and the other a part time author and asked each of them if they would accompany him into the Superstitions to see his discoveries. Both men flatly refused his requests.


So on Monday April 30, 1984, Walter Gassler made his final trek into the Superstition Mountains alone. Five days later, on Friday May 4, 1984 two Apache Junction men on horseback came upon Walter Gassler sitting on a rock along the Peter's Mesa trail above Charley-Boy spring. Walter was dead and further up the trail were several armed men milling around looking down on the scene. The two riders identified the men above as some of Crazy Jakes hired men. Not wanting to become involved with Jake or his men neither rider dismounted.


Neither rider knew who Walter Gassler was and speculated the man’s death may have been due to some kind of confrontation between Jakes men and the deceased. Realizing they could do nothing for the dead man, both riders hurriedly turned around and left the scene to report the death to the authorities.


When a Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene to investigate, he found Walter as the two riders had found him. It appeared to him Walter had died of a heart attack and later the Pinal County coroner confirmed that fact although no autopsy was performed.

Walter Gassler was found perched atop a small rock with no backing, almost like a person sitting on a small bar stool seat. At the time, it struck the Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy how a man could suffer the acute pain of a heart attack and die while perched upon such a small rock without falling off. The deputy noted that had the wind been blowing that day it would have blown the man off his perch. It seemed almost as if the deceased had been propped up on that rock in a sitting position by someone.


Among Walter’s possessions that he had with him at his death was a backpack that was reported to have contained some gold ore. Ore that Walter had most probably collected from his mine. Somehow that backpack with the ore went missing as did other items of Walter’s when someone pretending to be Walter’s son requested he be given his father’s map and possessions. No one has ever learned who the man who claimed to be Walter’s son was.


After Walter’s death a television documentary was done on Walter Gassler and his discovery but it wasn’t the documentary Walter and Robert Lee had planned. The television show Unsolved Mysteries did a one hour nationwide broadcast on the events surrounding Walter’s life long search and ultimate death in the Superstition Mountains.


Sadly, Robert Lee died in Los Angeles not long after Walter’s death and all hope for the Lee-Gassler documentary died with him. Walter Gassler did leave behind his manuscript which is a fascinating story of his search and a look into the way things were in the Superstitions in the 1930’s through the 1980’s. That manuscript can be found at the Superstition Mountain Museum in Apache Junction.


Walter Gassler will always be remembered as a good friend and one of the legendary characters of the Superstition Mountains and the search for the Lost Dutchman Goldmine.

excellent story matthew but you made one mistake...you called his death a tragedy...walt died doing what he loved and he died in his favorite place...we should all be so lucky

 

[deducer]

Matthew, thank you for starting an interesting and relevant thread. It's a welcome relief to the excess drivel that has been posted lately.

I have read that an autopsy was found to be unnecessary because one side of Walter's face was burnt very badly by the sun, over a period of time.

 

[Tpmetal]

I would love to find and search that guys camp though

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Matthew, thank you for starting an interesting and relevant thread. It's a welcome relief to the excess drivel that has been posted lately.

I have read that an autopsy was found to be unnecessary because one side of Walter's face was burnt very badly by the sun, over a period of time.

deducer,

Agree completely, the amount of drivel has driven just about every serious Dutch Hunter off of T-Net. It only took one post on this thread for the trolls to show up again and in a few more posts I'm sure they will have spammed the thread into nothingness with off-topic, inflammatory and personal promoting posts.

You are correct, no autopsy was performed on Walter and this may have been at the request of the family although there were enough questions surrounding his death that an autopsy should have been done. Pinal County, in my opinion dropped the ball on Walter's death. So did Maricopa County, since Walter did not die in Pinal County, he clearly died in Maricopa County. The same situation in reverse as with Adolph Ruth.

You are correct again about the right side of Walter's face having turned a black color. At least a dozen arm-chair doctors chimed in on why this happened including one Phd author of three Dutchman books. All of them got it completely wrong.

Once you die you do not continue to tan or burn black in the Sun. So the Sun shining on Walter would have turned him black everywhere following our Phd's theory.

What turned Walter's right face (cheek) black as explained by the Pinal County coroner, was Walter fell on his right side and while still alive, blood pooled on that side of his face while having a heart attack. After death that blood, pooling and being trapped in his right cheek area caused a dark black bruise. That same "blackness" was also evident on other parts of Walter's right side.

The question this raises is of course, if Walter died laying on his right side, how did he come to be found sitting up perched on a small rock ?

Matthew

 

[Matthew Roberts]

I would love to find and search that guys camp though

Tpmetal,

Walters camp is another interesting question.

In the Unsolved Mysteries broadcast it was presented that the two men Walter had asked to accompany him into the Superstitions had been given Walter's map. Walter himself had given the map to the men according to the two men.

Yet neither of those two men knew where Walter's camp was located on Peters Mesa.

Which is strange because Walter had clearly and unmistakenly marked on his map exactly where his camp was located and even had directions to it penciled in the lower corner of that map. I know this because I have Walters map , the one Walter made copies from and allegedly gave to these men. Even someone unfamiliar with Peters Mesa could have followed those directions to his camp. One of these two men even wrote a column (article) about later going up on Peters Mesa to try and find Walter's camp but failing to locate it. Walter's map was a topographic map with many things marked and penciled in on that map as well as notes to his camp and mine in the margins of that map.

Years after Walter's death I was on Peters Mesa with one of those two men and I showed him where Walter's camp was. He had no idea where it was. The camp was well hidden in a Laural tree grove on the west side of Peters Mesa north dome. You could not enter the Laural grove from below (the west) because it was too thick and brushey. You had to go to the east end of the grove and an old trail ran along that side of the grove. From that trail was how Walter entered to get to his camp. The camp was completely hidden and could not be seen from anywhere outside the grove or from above.

I was just there at Walter's old camp a few months ago and there are still a few of Walter's things left there near that camp.

Matthew

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Here's an interesting article concerning Walter that appeared in the Arizona Republic on Thursday, November 24, 1988

NBC digs into the Lost Dutchman mystery.

James E. Cook, Arizona Republic Columnist and the Unsolved Mysteries TV crew stirs up mixed feelings in the probe of the death of Walt K. Gassler.

The real Unsolved Mystery may be, just exactly what is the mystery?
The popular NBC series, which dramatizes so-called unsolved mysteries ranging from crimes to curiosities, was in Apache Junction, Arizona last weekend to film a segment about the death of Walt Gassler, a Superstition Mountains buff.

Arizona Attorney General Bob Corbin mounted a horse to play a role in the segment, which will air in February 1989. Corbin’s hobby is searching for the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstitions. He joined another part-time prospector, Tom Kollenborn of Apache Junction, in a search for the mine, which Corbin said Gassler might have found in his 50 years of searching. But there is no mystery about Gassler's death in March 1984, according to his family which refused to participate in the show. "(Gassler) died a natural death," said Pam Gassler, wife of the late Gassler's son, Roland.

Walt was 82 years old. Tim Rogan, Unsolved Mystery segment producer, said the circumstances of Gassler's death don't make up the show's mystery. He said the death is just one aspect of the mystery of whether there is gold in the Superstitions. Legend has it that immigrant Dutchman Jacob Waltz found gold in the mountains. Waltz died Oct. 25, 1891, supposedly without telling anyone where he had found the gold he had been using for his expenses. Since then, several people have claimed to have known the site of the Lost Dutchman Mine, according to Mary Powell of the staff of the Mesa Southwest Museum, which has exhibits about the legend.

The museum has in its collection Stone Maps that some say pinpoint the mine's location and a collection of books about the legend. The fact that gold never has been found in the mountains and that geologists say it is unlikely it ever will be has done little to diminish interest in the Lost Dutchman. The interest continues, Rogan said, because of curious circumstances, such as those involving a stranger who showed up after Walt Gassler's death claiming to be his son, Roland.

This man went to Tom Kollenborn and said he had found gold in Walt Gassler's backpack. "Kollenborn and Corbin told us that," Pam Gassler said, "and when they met my husband, they realized it was a different man."
Corbin said Kollenborn told him the stranger wanted a copy of a topographic map on which Gassier had plotted his explorations.

Kollenborn and Corbin said the stranger's gold, purportedly from Gassler, resembled the ore in Waltz's possession when he died. Unsolved Mysteries' producers have tried to get Roland Gassier to appear on the show, but he has refused, mainly because it might upset his mother, his wife said. Rogan said the show's producers aren't trying to upset the family or bring back bad memories.

"When the real Roland showed up, the question arose, 'Who was this guy and where did he get the ore?' " Rogan said. Corbin said he and Kollenborn never learned the stranger's identity. Rogan said the story points out the lure of the Lost Dutchman. "There are hundreds of maps and hundreds of people still searching for the Lost Dutchman Mine. That's the real mystery."

Walt Gassler was 82 years old and had walked 12 miles into the canyon. They found him on the side of the road. "The coroner said he died of a heart attack. There's no big mystery, and that's why we won't get involved," Pam Gassler said. Her father-in-law was a "real Superstitions buff and had made yearly treks into the mountains for 50 years.

(Note* the Unsolved Mysteries segment about Walter appeared later on March 15, 1989.)

Matthew

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Here is another interesting note from the Unsolved Mysteries WIKI online website concerning the Walter Gassler episode.
Case File: Lost Dutchman Mine March 15, 1989

Using clues handed down from Jacob's death-bed description, Walter Gassler spent most of his free time looking for the legendary mine, but when his health began to fail, Walt contacted Bob Corbin, who was then the Attorney General of Arizona and Tom Kollenborn, a local historian, but one day, Walt hiked alone into the Superstitions, never to be seen alive again.

Three days later, a local ranch-hand found his body. Walt had died due to a heart attack.

One month after Walt's death, Tom Kollenborn had a surprising visit from a man claiming to be Roland Gassler, Walt Gassler's son, who produced a gold brick from his father's possessions as "proof" of his identity. Since it looked very similar to the gold that allegedly came out of the Lost Dutchman mine, Tom obliged him and gave him the manuscripts. Two months later, he was approached by the real Roland Gassler.

It's believed that this imposter might have stolen the gold brick from Walt; the man who had found Walt's body, remembered seeing the backpack with him, and a stranger in the area that day.

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Here is another interesting note from the Unsolved Mysteries WIKI online website concerning the Walter Gassler episode.
Case File: Lost Dutchman Mine March 15, 1989

Using clues handed down from Jacob's death-bed description, Walter Gassler spent most of his free time looking for the legendary mine, but when his health began to fail, Walt contacted Bob Corbin, who was then the Attorney General of Arizona and Tom Kollenborn, a local historian, but one day, Walt hiked alone into the Superstitions, never to be seen alive again.

Three days later, a local ranch-hand found his body. Walt had died due to a heart attack.

One month after Walt's death, Tom Kollenborn had a surprising visit from a man claiming to be Roland Gassler, Walt Gassler's son, who produced a gold brick from his father's possessions as "proof" of his identity. Since it looked very similar to the gold that allegedly came out of the Lost Dutchman mine, Tom obliged him and gave him the manuscripts. Two months later, he was approached by the real Roland Gassler.

It's believed that this imposter might have stolen the gold brick from Walt; the man who had found Walt's body, remembered seeing the backpack with him, and a stranger in the area that day.

Nice tribute, 34 years to the day of Walter Gassler being found. Sounds like from that laurel grove, he could have hit Crazy Jake on the head with a rock...do you know if Walter ever got to file his claim, or was he too late? Best regards, Jim

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Nice tribute, 34 years to the day of Walter Gassler being found. Sounds like from that laurel grove, he could have hit Crazy Jake on the head with a rock...do you know if Walter ever got to file his claim, or was he too late? Best regards, Jim

PotBelly Jim,

You are correct, Walter's camp was some 1000 - 1500 feet due east of Crazy Jake who was then camped at the top edge of New Squaw Canyon.

The plan was to have the claim laid out with the center and corner rock monuments in place and the Location paper placed in the center monument before December 31. Walter had dated the Location paper December 20, 1983.
Walter was to go to the Maricopa County Recorders office and record the Location before December 31.

Walter had been told the Location had to be in place before the 31st but the recording could follow in a reasonable amount of time even if after January 1, 1984.
Walter followed through with his plan but when I went to the BLM office to check on both Walter's claim and one of my own I filed before December 31st, the BLM had pulled all existing claims in the Wilderness area and turned them over to the Forest Service for on site verifications.

I never could get any information on those mining claims once the Forest Service got their hands on them.
Walter's mine claim recording should still be on file in downtown Phoenix unless those records have been purged. It has been 34 years since Walter recorded that claim.

Matthew

 

[azdave35]

PotBelly Jim,

You are correct, Walter's camp was some 1000 - 1500 feet due east of Crazy Jake who was then camped at the top edge of New Squaw Canyon.

The plan was to have the claim laid out with the center and corner rock monuments in place and the Location paper placed in the center monument before December 31. Walter had dated the Location paper December 20, 1983.
Walter was to go to the Maricopa County Recorders office and record the Location before December 31.

Walter had been told the Location had to be in place before the 31st but the recording could follow in a reasonable amount of time even if after January 1, 1984.
Walter followed through with his plan but when I went to the BLM office to check on both Walter's claim and one of my own I filed before December 31st, the BLM had pulled all existing claims in the Wilderness area and turned them over to the Forest Service for on site verifications.

I never could get any information on those mining claims once the Forest Service got their hands on them.
Walter's mine claim recording should still be on file in downtown Phoenix unless those records have been purged. It has been 34 years since Walter recorded that claim.

Matthew

matthew...once the forest service (or any other govt agency) null and voids your claim there will be no record....they did the same thing to carrol ingle...

 

[somehiker]

From the beginning.......
WAS WG packed in on that last trip by Ron's men, as claimed ?
Does this make sense, and how might it factor into the story ?

 

[Matthew Roberts]

From the beginning.......
WAS WG packed in on that last trip by Ron's men, as claimed ?
Does this make sense, and how might it factor into the story ?

somehiker,

On the day Walter went into the Superstitions for the last time, April 30, 1984 his wife Collette drove him to the First Water trail head. Walter got out of the car and started walking down the trail into the mountains.

That is in the Pinal County Sheriff's report.

Follow the video and you will see that the whole purpose is to convince everyone that Walter "had nothing." That there is no gold anywhere but the East Superstitions.
The star of the video has written books about the East Superstitions being the LDM and has put forward the story of the Pit Mine in the East Superstition Mountains as being the Dutchman.

Neither of the two men who found Walter knew who Walter Gassler was when they found him. One of those men worked for the video star and the other lived with the video star. Again this is in the Sheriff's report.

The star also states as fact Tex Barkley misled Walter for years and lied to him, because he didn't want Walter going over in the East Superstitions where all the gold is.


The video doesn't tell the Gassler story anywhere near the way it actually occurred. Nice video though otherwise.

 

[Lucky Baldwin]

Thank you Mr. Roberts for some great reading and RIP Mr. Gassler

I find your description of Mr. Gassler's camp intriguing. I would love to spend a night or two there. Not to search and distroy, but to soak up the rare beauty of a laurel grove in the desert mountains. Since I've never seen one, I'd have to stay there long enough so I never forget.

You said Mr. Gassler had access to your water, etc., so I'm assuming his camp is dry. If you don't mind me asking, how far away is the nearest water?

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Thank you Mr. Roberts for some great reading and RIP Mr. Gassler

I find your description of Mr. Gassler's camp intriguing. I would love to spend a night or two there. Not to search and distroy, but to soak up the rare beauty of a laurel grove in the desert mountains. Since I've never seen one, I'd have to stay there long enough so I never forget.

You said Mr. Gassler had access to your water, etc., so I'm assuming his camp is dry. If you don't mind me asking, how far away is the nearest water?

Lucky Baldwin,

Walter had access to the water, food and supplies I had cached near my camp which was not far from Walter's camp.
I would go in the mountains during or right after rains and refill my water containers and cache them for future use.
The closest good, permanent water to Walter's camp is Charleboise Spring a little over a mile to the south of his camp.
There are several pools and small tanks on Peters Mesa that hold water for weeks or months after a good rain depending on the time of year the rain falls.
You almost have to know the country on and around the Mesa to find them, they are not marked on maps and there are no springs once on Peters Mesa.
Caching water is the best way to insure a good supply of water but it takes a lot of time, energy and resourcefulness.

Matthew

 

[massey631]

View attachment 1586054

Photo of Walter Gassler taken 1935.


Walter Karl Gassler’s 50-year search for the Lost Dutchman Goldmine ended tragically 34 years ago on May 4, 1984 when he was found dead in the Superstition Mountains. Walter was a true legend of the Superstitions. He hiked and camped, searched and dug and survived for half a century using nothing but a topo map, his energy and his instincts.


The debate continues today over how he died. Was it by natural causes, or had someone contributed to his death. Walter’s story of his life-long search was chronicled in 1989 on the television show Unsolved Mysteries.


Walter Gassler was born in Switzerland and came to New York city in the 1920’s. He traveled west to Los Angeles where he was employed as a master chef. His life-long passion was searching for lost treasure in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.


Walter learned everything he could about the Lost Dutchman gold mine and its owner, Jacob Waltz. He spent considerable time in the Bancroft Library in Berkley California and other repositories of books and documents, reading everything he could find about Waltz and the lost mine legend and tales.


He spent time in the Superstition Mountains in the late 1920's before he resided in Arizona, making annual treks into the mountains searching for Waltz's lost mine. When he came to Arizona to settle he spent considerable time at Tex Barkley's Quarter Circle U ranch on the edge of the Superstition Mountains and became close friends with Barkley and his family.



One day at the Quarter Circle U ranch Walter and Tex Barkley were talking and Barkley told Walter a strange and intriguing story. He confessed to Walter that in 1931 he had found the body of Adolph Ruth, a missing prospector, on Peters Mesa. Barkley went on to say he and one of his wranglers, Tom Dickens, transported Ruth’s body off the Mesa and left it in a canyon where it was eventually found on the northeast side of Black Top Mesa.


According to Walter, Tex gave conflicting reasons for doing this. He told Walter he moved the body because he didn’t want hordes of people swarming all over his cattle range scattering his herd but also said that he had found a map on Ruth and with some friends followed that map to a cave marked on that map that was supposed to be the key to finding the lost mine. Barkley said this cave was located somewhere north of Peters Mesa. Once at the cave however, Barkley and the others were unable to locate the mine.


Tex Barkley went on to tell Walter that if he were to find the lost mine it would be somewhere in the vicinity of that cave and encouraged Walter to keep searching the area.


Walter continued his searching whenever time allowed him a few days away from work and family. He established a camp on Peters Mesa in a thick Laurel grove of trees on the west side of the Mesa. Walter’s camp was well hidden in that Laurel grove and unless you knew it was in that grove you would never guess it was there.


After an absence of several years from the Superstition Mountains Walter Gassler renewed his search for the Lost Dutchman Mine in the twilight of his years. Walter was now 80 and had written a 70-page manuscript that told the story of his 50-year search for the lost mine. Walter had located a mine that he believed to be the Lost Dutchman and had contacted a Los Angeles author and film-maker named Robert Lee. He corresponded with Lee for several months and Lee planned to make a documentary of Walter’s manuscript. All that remained for Walter to do was prove his mine was the Lost Dutchman. To accomplish that, Walter needed to claim the mine and collect samples of ore from the site.


So at the age of 80 Walter went back into the Superstition Mountains. His first trip back to his old camp in the Laurel grove ended badly. Walter realized he was in no condition to hike the mountains as he once had. He came back out of the Superstitions that time without realizing his goal. At this point, he knew he needed help to claim his mine and finish the work for Lee’s documentary.


One of the things that prompted Walter to hurry his claim was the Superstition Wilderness deadline. On January 1, 1984, the area of Walter’s mine became Wilderness and he would lose all rights to his find unless he filed on it before midnight of December 31, 1983.


It was the fall of 1983 when Walter contacted me and asked me for help. My camp on Peters Mesa was very near Walter’s camp and Walter always had access to my water, food and equipment I had cached on the Mesa whenever he was in the mountains. Walter asked me to go into the mountains and put up his claim monuments before the December 31st deadline. With the corner and center claim monuments erected Walter could go to the courthouse in Phoenix and file the claim papers with the recorder and everything would be legal. Walter supplied me with his topographic map which had the mine location marked and how he wanted the claim laid out. Then he filled out the claim location paper and gave it to me to put in a glass jar at the center monument of his claim.


I was able to put up Walter’s claim markers just before Christmas of 1983. I also took a few ore samples from the site as Walter had asked me to do.


In April of 1984 Walter at last felt he was able to make the hike into his mine to take samples for himself and photograph the mine for Lee’s documentary. At that time however a dangerous and troublesome individual, Crazy Jake Jacob, was causing a lot of trouble in Walter’s area and Walter did not want to have problems with Jake or Jake’s hired men. Walter contacted the Tonto National Forest office at Mesa and asked about Crazy Jakes activities. The Mesa Forest Service told him that Crazy Jake was indeed camped in the area and to avoid him and use extreme caution around him.


Robert Lee had told Walter it would be advisable for him to take someone into the mountains with him that would be a reliable witness to Walter’s claim of finding the Lost Dutchman Mine. Someone of integrity and well known throughout Arizona who would vouch for Walters claim.


In April of 1984 Walter approached two such men, one a former Arizona State official and the other a part time author and asked each of them if they would accompany him into the Superstitions to see his discoveries. Both men flatly refused his requests.


So on Monday April 30, 1984, Walter Gassler made his final trek into the Superstition Mountains alone. Five days later, on Friday May 4, 1984 two Apache Junction men on horseback came upon Walter Gassler sitting on a rock along the Peter's Mesa trail above Charley-Boy spring. Walter was dead and further up the trail were several armed men milling around looking down on the scene. The two riders identified the men above as some of Crazy Jakes hired men. Not wanting to become involved with Jake or his men neither rider dismounted.


Neither rider knew who Walter Gassler was and speculated the man’s death may have been due to some kind of confrontation between Jakes men and the deceased. Realizing they could do nothing for the dead man, both riders hurriedly turned around and left the scene to report the death to the authorities.


When a Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene to investigate, he found Walter as the two riders had found him. It appeared to him Walter had died of a heart attack and later the Pinal County coroner confirmed that fact although no autopsy was performed.

Walter Gassler was found perched atop a small rock with no backing, almost like a person sitting on a small bar stool seat. At the time, it struck the Pinal County Sheriff’s deputy how a man could suffer the acute pain of a heart attack and die while perched upon such a small rock without falling off. The deputy noted that had the wind been blowing that day it would have blown the man off his perch. It seemed almost as if the deceased had been propped up on that rock in a sitting position by someone.


Among Walter’s possessions that he had with him at his death was a backpack that was reported to have contained some gold ore. Ore that Walter had most probably collected from his mine. Somehow that backpack with the ore went missing as did other items of Walter’s when someone pretending to be Walter’s son requested he be given his father’s map and possessions. No one has ever learned who the man who claimed to be Walter’s son was.


After Walter’s death a television documentary was done on Walter Gassler and his discovery but it wasn’t the documentary Walter and Robert Lee had planned. The television show Unsolved Mysteries did a one hour nationwide broadcast on the events surrounding Walter’s life long search and ultimate death in the Superstition Mountains.


Sadly, Robert Lee died in Los Angeles not long after Walter’s death and all hope for the Lee-Gassler documentary died with him. Walter Gassler did leave behind his manuscript which is a fascinating story of his search and a look into the way things were in the Superstitions in the 1930’s through the 1980’s. That manuscript can be found at the Superstition Mountain Museum in Apache Junction.


Walter Gassler will always be remembered as a good friend and one of the legendary characters of the Superstition Mountains and the search for the Lost Dutchman Goldmine.

My question is where did they find Walt Gassler's body in the Superstition Mountains? Was it close to Peter's Mesa? Where was his body located when they found him?

 

[massey631]

excellent story matthew but you made one mistake...you called his death a tragedy...walt died doing what he loved and he died in his favorite place...we should all be so lucky

What I'm haveing a hard time with in my mind is the Walt Gassler's son imposter. Has anyone ever found this man yet that did this to Tom? You know He's got something in his poesession right now that everyone wants and if you find this man your going to find the one clue behind the LDGM or who this imposter is. DANG I WISHED I COULD FIND THIS MAN. HE HOLDS THE KEY TO SOO MANY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS INTO THE LDGM. Soo the real question remains who is this man and what does he know about the LDGM? If he's still alive you know for certain he'll be a back stabbing criminal due to blackmailing people. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking there is something more to this story than just stealing maps or information behind Walt Gassler's findings. I think there's alot more to this story than just a thief stealing information. I believe that he stole alot of Gold from Gassler finding the mine. I think Walt Gassler knew something greater and wasn't telling anyone about it bc of the shock he knew concerning where the LDGM is located. I mean doesn't it seem like there is something more going on here than just finding the LDGM or gold treasure? I think there is something more to this story than just a thief trying to steal information to find the LDGM location. People just don't go out looking for a little thing of worth there has't be something much greater behind all of this. Soo the Question is whats really behind finding the LDGM? I think this imposter stole alot of Gold from Walt Gassler at his campsite.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

What I'm haveing a hard time with in my mind is the Walt Gassler's son imposter. Has anyone ever found this man yet that did this to Tom? You know He's got something in his poesession right now that everyone wants and if you find this man your going to find the one clue behind the LDGM or who this imposter is. DANG I WISHED I COULD FIND THIS MAN. HE HOLDS THE KEY TO SOO MANY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS INTO THE LDGM. Soo the real question remains who is this man and what does he know about the LDGM? If he's still alive you know for certain he'll be a back stabbing criminal due to blackmailing people. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking there is something more to this story than just stealing maps or information behind Walt Gassler's findings. I think there's alot more to this story than just a thief stealing information. I believe that he stole alot of Gold from Gassler finding the mine. I think Walt Gassler knew something greater and wasn't telling anyone about it bc of the shock he knew concerning where the LDGM is located. I mean doesn't it seem like there is something more going on here than just finding the LDGM or gold treasure? I think there is something more to this story than just a thief trying to steal information to find the LDGM location. People just don't go out looking for a little thing of worth there has't be something much greater behind all of this. Soo the Question is whats really behind finding the LDGM? I think this imposter stole alot of Gold from Walt Gassler at his campsite.

Walter's body was discovered just off the Charleboise - Peters Mesa trail on the south slope of Peters Mesa.
No one knows exactly who the man was that posed as Walter's son.