Chief Smitkin's Gold

[Trlewis48]

CHIEF SMITKIN’S GOLD© (PART 2)
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4. US Highway 97 / WA-155 Junction

GPS: 48°25’20″ N, 119°30’15″ W (approx.) | Omak, WA 98841

The approach junction from US Route 97 to Washington Route 155 heading east toward the mission. The documentary clue references the mission as ‘off 97 in Omak’; this junction is the operational reference point. WA-155 runs approximately four miles east from here to the Mission Road turnoff.

5. Omak — Research and Logistics Base

GPS: 48°25’20″ N, 119°30’15″ W | Omak, WA 98841

The nearest incorporated city (population 4,860, 2020 census). The Okanogan County Historical Society maintains archival holdings relevant to the mission’s early-20th-century history. The Okanogan County Courthouse, five miles south in Okanogan, holds land records and plat maps covering the mission property.

6. Okanogan County Courthouse — Land Records Repository

GPS: 48°22’31″ N, 119°31’59″ W | 149 3rd Ave N, Okanogan, WA 98840

Deed records, plat maps, and historical land documentation for the mission property are held here. Bureau of Indian Affairs administrative records for the Colville Agency — including allotment rolls, correspondence, and agency reports from the 1900–1920 period — are held at the National Archives Pacific Alaska Region, 6125 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115; telephone 206-336-5115.

7. Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation — Business Council

GPS: 48°33’45″ N, 118°56’15″ W (approx.) | 21 Colville Street, Nespelem, WA 99155 | 509-634-2200

The governing authority for all activity on the Colville Indian Reservation. The 1.4 million-acre reservation encompasses Okanogan and Ferry Counties. Any investigation of the Smitkin cache must commence with a formal written proposal to the Colville Business Council. No fieldwork proceeds without a signed agreement from this body.

WHY THE CACHE HAS NOT BEEN RECOVERED

The Smitkin account has circulated within the treasure-hunting community for at minimum six decades. It appears in the TreasureNet.com Washington State discussion thread from September 2005, in the Treasure Valley Metal Detecting Club’s state inventory, and in Rockchasing.com’s compilation of Washington hidden treasures. It is not an obscure or recently surfaced account. Multiple investigators have reportedly searched for it. None has reported a recovery. Four structural factors explain the persistent failure.

Institutional Status and Legal Access Constraints

Paschal Sherman Indian School is an active educational institution on federally protected tribal trust land. It is not publicly accessible and does not accommodate unsupervised visitors. Every search conducted without tribal authorization has constituted a federal trespass on sovereign territory, exposing the investigator to criminal prosecution. A legitimate, authorized search — one conducted under a written agreement with the Colville Business Council and the Diocese of Spokane, with professional methodology and proper documentation — has not, to any publicly known record, ever been undertaken. The site has been searched by trespassers; it has never been properly searched at all.

A Century of Surface Alteration

Between 1918 and the present, the mission grounds have been subjected to over a century of institutional modification: the 1919 fire and its reconstruction, successive generations of school construction, road and utility installation, landscaping, and routine maintenance. A cache interred in 1918 may now lie beneath a concrete foundation slab, a compacted roadbed, or cultivated ground that has been mechanically turned scores of times. No comprehensive record exists of what was disturbed, when, and where. The absence of systematic ground-disturbance documentation is itself a significant obstacle.

Unknown Container Configuration

The accounts specify gold coins but provide no description of the containing vessel. The distinction is not trivial for detection purposes. A degraded leather bag would have released its contents into a loose cluster of coins at depth, producing a scattered but detectable metallic signature without the strong coherent response of an intact metal container. An iron or steel box would produce a robust ferrous signal but would also have experienced substantial corrosive transformation over a century of ground contact. A ceramic or stone container — less common but historically attested — would provide no ferrous signal at all, with the coins’ gold signature alone constituting the detectable target. Without knowledge of the container, a searcher cannot configure their equipment or interpret ambiguous signals with confidence.

Absence of Adequate Instrumentation

The earliest documented searches employed metal detection technology from the 1960s and 1970s — beat-frequency oscillator and early induction-balance instruments with effective depth penetration of approximately 10 to 12 inches for coin-sized targets in mineralized soil. A cache buried at 24 to 36 inches — a conservative estimate for someone who wanted it secure against casual discovery — would have been entirely below the detection threshold of those instruments. The investigators who searched earliest walked over ground that their equipment could not reach. Modern pulse-induction detectors with large-diameter search coils achieve reliable depth penetration of 36 to 48 inches for metallic targets in the coin range. Ground-penetrating radar systems can image subsurface features at greater depths still. The Smitkin site has never been subjected to a survey employing instrumentation capable of reaching the probable burial depth.

THE ANATOMY OF A PROPER INVESTIGATION

The investigation of the Smitkin cache, if conducted correctly, begins not with a metal detector but with archival research that defines the physical boundaries of the problem before any fieldwork is attempted.

The first documentary priority is the General Land Office original survey and patent records for the St. Mary’s Mission property, available through the National Archives Pacific Alaska Region (6125 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115; telephone 206-336-5115). These records establish the legal metes-and-bounds description of the mission property as it existed in 1918 and provide the foundation for all subsequent spatial analysis. They should be cross-referenced against the 1918 USGS 7.5-minute topographic quadrangle covering the Omak area, accessible through the USGS National Geologic Map Database TopoView application at ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/. The 1918 topographic map captures the physical layout of the mission grounds — building locations, access routes, garden plots, and terrain features — as Smitkin knew them.

The second research priority is the Okanogan County Historical Society’s archival photograph collection. Mission photographs from the 1910 to 1920 period, if they exist and can be located, would document the spatial arrangement of mission structures and open ground in the years bracketing Smitkin’s burial. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Colville Agency administrative records at the National Archives Pacific Alaska Region may contain agency reports, correspondence, or census materials that shed light on Smitkin’s economic circumstances and the nature of his wealth in the years before 1918.

With the documentary foundation established, a formal written proposal should be submitted to the Colville Business Council in Nespelem and the Diocese of Spokane’s property administrator. The proposal should present the complete historical research, the evidentiary basis for the cache’s existence and probable location, the proposed search methodology and instrumentation, the professional credentials of the investigative team, and the proposed contractual disposition of any recovery. Washington State common law on found treasure applies a general principle of equitable division between finder and landowner; a proposed 50% landowner / 50% finder split is the conventional starting point for negotiations, though the tribal trust land context introduces additional considerations that should be addressed by attorneys experienced in federal Indian law.

If authorization is granted, the appropriate instrumentation for this target is a pulse-induction metal detector — the Minelab GPX-6000 or a comparable professional-grade instrument — operated with a 17 to 20-inch search coil on a systematic GPS-referenced grid pattern with all signals logged before any excavation is initiated. Ground-penetrating radar operated by a qualified geophysical survey company would provide the most comprehensive subsurface imaging and should be considered a primary rather than supplementary tool given the institutional significance of the site and the need to minimize unnecessary ground disturbance. The Archaeological Resources Protection Act requires that any ground disturbance on tribal or federal lands be conducted under the supervision of a qualified archaeologist. This is a legal requirement and, practically, a significant advantage: professional archaeological oversight ensures that the recovery, if it occurs, is documented to evidentiary standards and that the chain of custody for the recovered material is legally defensible.

The financial parameters are compelling. At $5,000 per troy ounce, the minimum metal value of the Smitkin cache is $4,353,750. Numismatic premiums for 1918-dated Double Eagles in above-circulated condition add substantially to that figure. Any 1918-S pieces in the cache — mintage 3,890, among the scarcest Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles ever produced — carry individual collector values of $8,000 to $20,000 and above. A recovery of 900 coins in grades consistent with minimal ground exposure, professionally negotiated and distributed under a formal agreement, would rank among the significant treasure recoveries in the documented history of the Pacific Northwest.

THE BOTTOM LINE

In 1918, a prominent Okanogan chief named Smitkin buried $18,000 in gold coins — by all probability 900 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles — somewhere in the immediate vicinity of St. Mary’s Mission east of Omak, Washington. He died the same year. He disclosed the location to no one. His neighbors, having observed his repeated solitary nocturnal visits to the mission church across his final years, concluded after his death that the gold was buried nearby and that those visits were his private practice of proximity to something he could not part with or reveal. No recovery has been reported in over a century.

At $5,000 per troy ounce — the conservative end of the documented 2026 institutional consensus, endorsed by Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and the BullionVault investor survey — the 870.75 troy ounces of gold in those coins carry a metal-floor valuation of $4,353,750. Numismatic premiums for the 1918 Saint-Gaudens series, and particularly for the exceptionally rare 1918-S San Francisco Mint issue with its mintage of 3,890 pieces, push the potential recovery value substantially above that floor.

The church Smitkin visited in the dark still stands. The ground around it has never been subjected to a properly equipped, legally authorized investigation. The tribal government and the Diocese that jointly control the property have the authority to grant that authorization. The historical record is documented to the evidentiary standards presented in this analysis. The coins are real. They entered the soil east of Omak more than a hundred years ago, within walking distance of a building that an old chief found sufficiently important to visit alone, after nightfall, with enough regularity that his neighbors remembered it for the rest of their lives.

PUBLICATION NOTICE AND RESEARCH COMPENSATION DISCLOSURE

This research document was originally published on TreasureNet.com for the benefit of that community’s readership. The historical investigation, numismatic analysis, legal framework, GPS documentation, archival sourcing, and field methodology described herein were conducted and compiled by T. R. Lewis. The research establishes, to the extent the historical record permits, the factual basis for the Smitkin cache’s existence, its probable location, its current monetary value, and the specific legal and procedural pathway required to search for it ethically and lawfully.

In consideration of that research contribution — and specifically in recognition of the fact that this analysis lays out both the evidentiary case for the cache’s existence and the complete procedural roadmap for its lawful recovery — T. R. Lewis asserts a research compensation interest of ten percent (10%) of the total recovered value of any coins found as a direct result of, or in material reliance upon, the research and methodology set forth in this document.

This compensation interest applies in aggregate across all parties to the recovery agreement — the treasure hunter, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane — and is to be satisfied collectively from the combined recovery, not separately from each party’s individual share. The 10% is to be paid exclusively in kind: that is, in actual recovered coins from the cache itself, not in cash, check, wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or any other monetary substitute. The specific coins allocated in satisfaction of this interest shall be selected by mutual agreement of the parties, with T. R. Lewis participating in that selection, and shall be denominated and distributed at face coin count proportionate to the overall recovery.

This compensation arrangement is not a suggestion or a preference. It is a condition of good-faith use of this research. Any party who pursues the Smitkin cache in material reliance on the historical documentation, location analysis, legal guidance, or field methodology contained in this document is ethically and contractually expected to include this 10% research compensation term in the written agreement executed among the treasure hunter, the Colville Business Council, and the Diocese of Spokane before any fieldwork commences. Absence of this term from the executed agreement would constitute a failure to honor the research contribution upon which the entire investigation was predicated.

T. R. Lewis may be contacted through TreasureNet.com to confirm the terms of this disclosure, to execute a formal research compensation agreement, or to provide supplementary consultation in support of the investigation.



SOURCES AND RESEARCH NOTES

1. HMDB.org (Historical Marker Database) — ‘St. Mary’s Mission Historical Marker.’ GPS confirmed: 48° 23.532′ N, 119° 27.474′ W. Marker text: ‘A French nobleman turned priest, Etienne DeRouge, S.J. established Saint Mary’s Mission at the invitation of Chief Smitkin in 1886.’ Address: 7674 WA-155, Omak, WA 98841. Erected by Okanogan County Historical Society. URL: hmdb.org/m.asp?m=270171

2. Treasure Valley Metal Detecting Club — ‘Lost Treasures in Washington.’ Primary treasure account: ‘Smitkin always went to church at Saint Mary’s Indian Mission at Omak. He would come alone at night and look at the church building. After he died in 1918, his neighbors theorized that Smitkin visited the church so much because he had his money buried nearby.’ States $20,000 figure. URL: treasurevalleymetaldetectingclub.com/lost-treasures-in-washington/

3. Rockchasing.com — ‘15 Priceless Treasures Hidden In Washington You Can Find.’ Confirms: ‘Chief Smithen was rumored to have buried $18,000 in gold coins near the St. Mary Indian Mission off Highway 97 in Omak in 1918.’ URL: rockchasing.com/hidden-treasures-in-washington/

4. TreasureNet.com — ‘Washington State Treasures?’ thread (September 2005). Original listing: ‘CHIEF SMITHEN, Buried $18,000.00 in Gold Coins in 1918, Near the St. Mary Indian Mission off 97 in OMAK?’ URL: treasurenet.com/threads/washington-state-treasures.11610/

5. Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) — ‘St. Mary’s Mission (Omak, Wash.).’ Archival record: ‘The mission was established on tribal land donated by Chief Smitkin near present Omak.’ Source: Graham Public Library. WorldCat record id: 535325457.

6. RevisitWA.org — ‘St. Mary’s Mission.’ Confirms the 1886 chapel at the head of Omak Lake as the mission’s founding location. Confirms Father DeRouge died 1916, succeeded by Father Celestine Caldi. URL: revisitwa.org/waypoint/st-marys-mission/

7. AAANativeArts.com — Sinixt Lake Indians Fact Sheet. Confirms James Bernard’s 1890 trip to Washington, D.C. ‘as interpreter for Chief Smitkin of the Colvilles’ to negotiate reservation boundaries. URL: aaanativearts.com/sinixt-lake-indians-fact-sheet

8. AAA.com — ‘St. Mary’s Mission Omak Washington.’ Confirms access route: ‘4 mi. e. via SR 155, then 1.5 mi. s. to 25 Mission Rd.’ Confirms Father Etienne de Rougé founded the mission in 1886 for the 12 bands of the Colville Federation. URL: aaa.com

9. OHWY.com — ‘St. Mary’s Mission Omak Washington.’ Confirms: ‘The present church dates from 1910, and remains an active Catholic church today. The adjacent Paschal Sherman Indian School, the state’s only Indian boarding school.’ URL: ohwy.com/wa/s/stmarysm.htm

10. Library of Congress — Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS WA-35). ‘St. Mary’s Mission, Colville Indian Reservation, Omak, Okanogan County, WA.’ 1933 architectural documentation photographs. URL: loc.gov/item/wa0075/

11. HistoryLink.org — ‘Okanogan County – Thumbnail History.’ Regional economic and settlement history. Confirms the post-1886 gold and silver mining period and the early-20th-century cattle and agriculture economy on the reservation. URL: historylink.org/file/7608

12. CCT-FNW.com — ‘History of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.’ Timeline confirms 1892 boarding school at St. Mary’s Mission and 1906 individual land allotments on the reservation’s south half.

13. OklahomaState.edu / Oklahoma State University — ‘Agreement with the Indians of Colville Reservation, 1905.’ Primary legal text. Confirms per-capita cash payment arrangement: ‘the sum of one hundred thousand dollars shall be devoted to making a per capita payment to the said Indians in cash within six months after the ratification of this agreement.’ URL: treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/agreement-with-the-indians-of-colville-reservation-1905

14. Kiddle.co — Colville Indian Reservation educational summary. Confirms: ‘The tribes had agreed to give up this land for $1.5 million. However, the government took 14 years to pay them.’

15. Digital Princeton University Library — Ernest Moore Foster Collection. 1906 Colville Reservation allotment survey materials. Documents cattle-ranching economy and general reservation conditions in the 1900–1910 period.

16. Wikipedia — ‘Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle.’ Coin specifications confirmed: mass 33.431g, diameter 34.1mm, thickness 2.41mm, gold content 0.96750 troy oz, 90% gold 10% copper alloy. Production years 1907–1933. URL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Gaudens_double_eagle

17. GoldSilverStacks.com — ‘Double Eagle Gold Coins: Key Dates, Errors & Value.’ Confirms 0.9675 troy oz gold content per coin, 33.436 gram weight. Provides mintage data: 1918-P (74,950); 1918-S (3,890). URL: goldsilverstacks.com/double-eagle-gold-coins/

18. GoldRepublic.com / ScottsdaleBC.com — Institutional gold price forecast compilation (June 2026). Goldman Sachs $5,400/oz year-end 2026; Wells Fargo $6,100–$6,300/oz; J.P. Morgan $6,000–$6,300/oz; Citigroup $5,000/oz near-term. Conservative working figure used: $5,000/oz.

19. BullionVault.com — ‘Precious Metal Price Forecasts 2026.’ June 8, 2026. Survey of 1,532 precious-metal investors: mean prediction $5,136/oz for December 2026.

20. Wikipedia — ‘Omak, Washington.’ GPS confirmed: 48°25’20″ N, 119°30’15″ W. Population 4,860 (2020 census). US Route 97 and WA-155 intersect in Omak. URL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omak, Washington

21. Wikipedia — ‘Omak Lake.’ GPS confirmed: 48°16’42.56″ N, 119°23’52.18″ W. Washington’s largest saline lake, 3,244 acres at 958 feet elevation. St. Mary’s Mission established at the head of the lake on land donated by Chief Smitkin in 1886. URL: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omak_Lake

22. Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation — colvilletribes.com. Enrollment is approximately 9,300. Headquarters: 21 Colville Street, Nespelem, WA 99155. Telephone: 509-634-2200. The Colville Business Council is the sole authorizing body for all investigative activity on Colville trust land. No fieldwork proceeds without a signed agreement from this office.

© T. R. Lewis — All Rights Reserved • Originally Published on TreasureNet.com


© T. R. Lewis — All Rights Reserved • Originally Published on TreasureNet.com​