Hola, amigos. Time to breathe some fresh life into the Tayopa story. I have a true story to tell. This is my personal experience with the Tayopa legend.
It was January of 1982. Some fellow Texans, the Hunt brothers, along with their Saudi partners, had spent the last several years trying to corner the world’s silver market and drove the price soaring to epic proportions. My name is Michael. I had just turned 18 and went to work for a small mining company out of Dallas, Texas, called Triad Mining Company, which was hot on the trail of Mexican silver. As I said, it was a small mining company and I was hired as a general laborer. My duties included driving equipment from Tucson to a town east of Hermosillo, on the edge of the Sierra Madres. Triad Mining Company had to partner with a Mexican company as was the law at the time. The Mexican company consisted of a couple of local wealthy families, who ran a store in town, an American by the name of Morgan, and the silent partner was the town’s padre. Not sure of Morgan’s last name, but I was to work with Morgan for the first few months. Morgan claimed to be in the navy during World War II. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were only 2 ships left undamaged by the Japanese and Morgan claimed to be on one of them. When Morgan was in the navy, he read a book called “The Treasure of the Sierra Madres” and vowed to find Tayopa. Upon working with Morgan closer, he told me that he had found Tayopa town and church. He said he had hidden the cornerstones of the church to further conceal it’s location.
Morgan had searched for Tayopa for over 20 years and had become quite an expert on the subject. He had quite a bit of documentation, maps and specific information regarding the town and church of Tayopa. I am by no means an expert on the subject. The information that I saw said there were 17 mines in the Guadelupe de Tayopa Mining District, consisting of 3 gold mines and 14 silver mines. Two of the gold mines were lode mines and one was a placer mine. The richest of the three was a lode mine. The town of Tayopa and it’s church was built next to it. The assays we ran from that site, found over 2 ounces to the ton of gold. Unfortunately, Morgan never let me go to the site and made every effort to conceal its location from me. These sites that I refer to are located on working cattle ranches, not hidden somewhere in the jungle. Any activity on the sites would be noticed.
In time, we built a road to the silver site. We brought in a work crew, a compressor, and a couple of hammers, spent 2 months trying to mine as much silver as possible, but found that it was not commercially feasible. The ore that we were mining was galena and ran 200-500 ounces of silver to the ton. But the veins were very small, ran 1-2 inches in size, maybe a couple of feet long and would peter out. We eventually brought out a geologist from Durango, Colorado. His reports did say the silver mine was commercially viable in a large-scale open pit mining. The estimate reserves he gave ran over $3 Trillion in silver and gold. I also reviewed his report on the gold Tayopa site which he said the lode claim averaged over 2 ounces per ton of gold and has an excess of $3 Trillion in reserves as well. I can tell you from first-hand experience, that the silver mine had been worked before. There were signs of a village that had been there once and signs that it had been actively mined at one point. I am not a historian, so I don’t know how old the ruins were that I was looking at, but there was nothing over knee-high left. It looked to me it had been worked at least 300-400 years ago.
I guess what goes up must come down again. After the Hunt brothers drove the price up, of course, the price of silver came crashing back down, along with our funding for Mexican silver apparently. My employment with Triad Mining Company came to an abrupt end as well.
In closing, I do believe the person whom I trust most was the geologist, who I spent quite a bit of time with. He was the smartest person I had known to that point and had a profound effect on me. I do believe both gold and silver sites each have in excess of $3 Trillion in reserves and should be of interest to a mining company. I know where both of these sites are located and are currently available for mining. As far as treasure and Tayopa goes, there is reason to believe that both sites may have treasure located on them, however, who knows. The person that owns the ranch that these sites are on would own the treasure one way or another. The adventure continues.
Michael
It was January of 1982. Some fellow Texans, the Hunt brothers, along with their Saudi partners, had spent the last several years trying to corner the world’s silver market and drove the price soaring to epic proportions. My name is Michael. I had just turned 18 and went to work for a small mining company out of Dallas, Texas, called Triad Mining Company, which was hot on the trail of Mexican silver. As I said, it was a small mining company and I was hired as a general laborer. My duties included driving equipment from Tucson to a town east of Hermosillo, on the edge of the Sierra Madres. Triad Mining Company had to partner with a Mexican company as was the law at the time. The Mexican company consisted of a couple of local wealthy families, who ran a store in town, an American by the name of Morgan, and the silent partner was the town’s padre. Not sure of Morgan’s last name, but I was to work with Morgan for the first few months. Morgan claimed to be in the navy during World War II. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were only 2 ships left undamaged by the Japanese and Morgan claimed to be on one of them. When Morgan was in the navy, he read a book called “The Treasure of the Sierra Madres” and vowed to find Tayopa. Upon working with Morgan closer, he told me that he had found Tayopa town and church. He said he had hidden the cornerstones of the church to further conceal it’s location.
Morgan had searched for Tayopa for over 20 years and had become quite an expert on the subject. He had quite a bit of documentation, maps and specific information regarding the town and church of Tayopa. I am by no means an expert on the subject. The information that I saw said there were 17 mines in the Guadelupe de Tayopa Mining District, consisting of 3 gold mines and 14 silver mines. Two of the gold mines were lode mines and one was a placer mine. The richest of the three was a lode mine. The town of Tayopa and it’s church was built next to it. The assays we ran from that site, found over 2 ounces to the ton of gold. Unfortunately, Morgan never let me go to the site and made every effort to conceal its location from me. These sites that I refer to are located on working cattle ranches, not hidden somewhere in the jungle. Any activity on the sites would be noticed.
In time, we built a road to the silver site. We brought in a work crew, a compressor, and a couple of hammers, spent 2 months trying to mine as much silver as possible, but found that it was not commercially feasible. The ore that we were mining was galena and ran 200-500 ounces of silver to the ton. But the veins were very small, ran 1-2 inches in size, maybe a couple of feet long and would peter out. We eventually brought out a geologist from Durango, Colorado. His reports did say the silver mine was commercially viable in a large-scale open pit mining. The estimate reserves he gave ran over $3 Trillion in silver and gold. I also reviewed his report on the gold Tayopa site which he said the lode claim averaged over 2 ounces per ton of gold and has an excess of $3 Trillion in reserves as well. I can tell you from first-hand experience, that the silver mine had been worked before. There were signs of a village that had been there once and signs that it had been actively mined at one point. I am not a historian, so I don’t know how old the ruins were that I was looking at, but there was nothing over knee-high left. It looked to me it had been worked at least 300-400 years ago.
I guess what goes up must come down again. After the Hunt brothers drove the price up, of course, the price of silver came crashing back down, along with our funding for Mexican silver apparently. My employment with Triad Mining Company came to an abrupt end as well.
In closing, I do believe the person whom I trust most was the geologist, who I spent quite a bit of time with. He was the smartest person I had known to that point and had a profound effect on me. I do believe both gold and silver sites each have in excess of $3 Trillion in reserves and should be of interest to a mining company. I know where both of these sites are located and are currently available for mining. As far as treasure and Tayopa goes, there is reason to believe that both sites may have treasure located on them, however, who knows. The person that owns the ranch that these sites are on would own the treasure one way or another. The adventure continues.
Michael
