Ok here's the story that I heard: The Peralta's had for years gone mining in the Upper Supes and each time they "paid off" the local Apache tribe. When they heard about the Guadalpe Pruchase (sorry for the spelling) that was being talked about, Peralta made a "last trip" up there. Lots of men and figured he didn't need to pay off the Apaches, as he had so many men. After about 6 months of mining they started back down the Salt river to come out. The Local Tribe had managed to get more tribes to join in the raid them. They hit them near the top end of the Supes and drove them into the Massacure Grounds. Peralta's 2 young sons and a family retainer climbed up the back wall and escaped the massacure by going along the top and then decending and making it back to Mexico. Years later when the Purchase was almost done, the 2 brothers decided to make another "Last Run" at mining up there. They again got a large party together and went up into the Supes. They didn't know about the payments that had been made to the Apache tribe before and figured that they had enough men that they weren't worried about one tribe of Apaches. But again that tribe contacted others and when they started back out with the newly mined gold as the Apaches were about to start attacking them, the Peralta's turned and went right up into the Massacure Grounds! To get the cached gold from the last time they mined up there. This time the Apaches remembered that some had climbed the back wall and got away, so they had some waiting on top and there were no survivors this time.
Now go to 1963-64 when the "Last Murderer" was brought back from Hawaii for shooting his "Best Friend" over a 4 Lb nugget found in the Supes (Iron Pyrite). The Extradition was front page news. Further back was the article used as "filler". In 1948 a man (don't remember his name) went up to the Massacure Grounds with a WWII mine detector( the first Metal detector) and found 2 trenches in the Massacure Grounds. Both were 8 about inchs wide. one 50 feet long and the other was 70 feet long, filled with leather bags full of "processed gold". In 1948 it was worth 26 Million dollars. He lost 1/2 of it to the US Gov. as Treasure Trove Tax (50%), then the IRS came and hit him with 98% Income tax on the remaining 13 Million. That is why it stuck in my memory 26 Million to 260K in one fell swoop to Uncle Sam. "You can have the money or you can have the Fame, not both."
