What is this?

[Barton]

Is this possibly a Spanish Cache site?

Thank you for your help and any insight.

Barton

 

[Red_desert]

In New Mexico, I was looking up from an arroyo once, there was a similar rock formation. Later checking a topographic map, I'm thinking it iwas called The Devil's Throne. The Spanish took out many millions of dollars worth of gold from the area. Later on settlers had a silver strike there. If this happened to be the same arroyo, there should be a tall rock and gravel pile close by still visible down in the bottom.

Hard to tell by looking at photos, since so much of NM is desert hills. If this is in Arizona, definitely not the place.

 

[Red_desert]

Check out the area right side of pic #3.

It's probably not the site I was to once, your location seems a little higher up.

 

[weregolf]

...

 

[Barton]

Hello Red Desert,

"In New Mexico, I was looking up from an arroyo once, there was a similar rock formation. Later checking a topographic map, I'm thinking it iwas called The Devil's Throne. The Spanish took out many millions of dollars worth of gold from the area. Later on settlers had a silver strike there. If this happened to be the same arroyo, there should be a tall rock and gravel pile close by still visible down in the bottom."

This photo is in Northern New Mexico---Where is the Devils Throne? I am curious--i would like to go see it.

Barton

Hard to tell by looking at photos, since so much of NM is desert hills. If this is in Arizona, definitely not the place.

 

[aarthrj3811]

Just a few silver specimen

 

[Red_desert]

Hello Red Desert,

"In New Mexico, I was looking up from an arroyo once, there was a similar rock formation. Later checking a topographic map, I'm thinking it iwas called The Devil's Throne. The Spanish took out many millions of dollars worth of gold from the area. Later on settlers had a silver strike there. If this happened to be the same arroyo, there should be a tall rock and gravel pile close by still visible down in the bottom."

This photo is in Northern New Mexico---Where is the Devils Throne? I am curious--i would like to go see it.

Barton

Hard to tell by looking at photos, since so much of NM is desert hills. If this is in Arizona, definitely not the place.

The Devil's Throne is in northern New Mexico. Not sure what topographic map source I'd found the name label, has been a while. Your photos still seem higher up but one looks just like the hills of the surrounding area. According to info from the Bureau of mines, around......probably late 1800s or turn of the century, a cave entrance was found then lost again, somewhere in those hills and the walls of it contained gold in white quartz. It was speculated the cave might actually have been an old lost Spanish gold mine.

 

[Red_desert]

I looked on Delorme NM Atlas Gazetteer and the place name isn't there. Must have been an online topo map source. I'll have to see if can find it now. In Zoom Earth you can see the road goes down into a wide arroyo which turns into a tiny wash left of the road. Interesting the road name ends with Canyon. Water flows after a rain all the way from Santa Fe. Once I saw some Hispanics stopped just off the road in the arroyo digging dirt into the back of their pickup truck. Across the river east of the road is a ghost town with a small museum. The owner said he dug dirt for to repair adobe on a building and found old coins in that load dug from above the arroyo on the north side. Later his boy looked around, saw an old safe which had been blown open. The museum owner handed me a little booklet he printed on how to make adobe bricks.

I do have camera photos, the old prints made from color film in the days before digital cameras. Don't have the time right now, to sort through them to locate my trip photos.

 

[Red_desert]

Turns out my memory was correct about the name (after all these years). I think your rock formation is more interesting than Devil's Throne, but hard to say for sure, because the old photos haven't been looked at in recent years.

 

[Red_desert]

Might mention, NE of DThrone the Native Americans had a Turquoise mine, but is is now private property.

 

[Red_desert]

Looking over the topo map again, made an important observation. Going N on the road which has a name that ends with Canyon. After going down to the arroyo bottom, then back up. Just past a little, the road curves to the E some, climbs up this small but steep hill. You can see the road curves E then back W again, Devils Throne is small steep grade hill on the S slope. It doesn't look like a car could make it down without sliding, it's a devil of a slope. I made it up and coming back later from the other direction took it very slow down to the bottom. As for the rock on the N edge of the arroyo, nothing important.

Devils Throne you could say is more of a landmark, rises up out of nowhere and sits by itself. I said the small museum was across the river, it is not across the river. Some of my research material suggested there could be multiple caches yet to be found along the river. These would be miner's catches, most likely on private property.