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Sorting out fact from
fiction is the great challenge for anyone interested in searching for the Lost
Dutchman’s Mine.
There was a Jacob Waltz, “the
Dutchman.” Waltz was born in Germany
around 1810, and immigrated to America in 1839.
Waltz arrived in New York City, but quickly made his way to goldfields
in North Carolina and Georgia.
Waltz did not strike
it rich in either North Carolina or Georgia, but he learned a valuable lesson,
that he had to be a citizen of the United States in order to stake a
claim. Waltz filed a letter of intent to
become a citizen on November 12, 1848.
Gold was discovered
in the newly annexed territory of California in 1849. The California fields
eclipsed the gold fields of the East, and Waltz, like every other prospector,
headed west.
Waltz worked as a
miner in California for eleven years. On July 19, 1861, in the Los Angeles
County Courthouse, Jacob Waltz became a naturalized citizen of the United
States.
Waltz left California
in 1863, with a group of prospectors bound for the Bradshaw Mountains of the
Arizona Territory. Waltz’s name appears on a mining claim filed in Prescott,
Arizona Territory, on September 21, 1863.
Waltz moved to the
Salt River Valley (an area near Phoenix and the Superstition Mountains) in
1868.
It was now that Waltz
began his trips into the mountains surrounding the Salt River Valley. Did Waltz discover a rich gold mine or cache
on one of these prospecting trips? Witnesses who knew Waltz, say Waltz prospected
every winter between 1868 -1886. Waltz died in Phoenix, Arizona Territory, on
October 25, 1891, in the home of Julia Thomas. Waltz gave Julia Thomas clues to
the location of a mine on his deathbed. Waltz is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery, in downtown
Phoenix.
Jacob
Waltz, the “Dutchman,” was dead. But the clues he left as to the location
of his mine remained alive in the dreams of Julia Thomas. Julia had looked
after Waltz before he died, and was the first of a long line of hunters
for the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.
Julia sold all of her worldly possessions to
finance a fruitless search for the mine.
Many historians
believe that Julia Thomas gave an interview to Pierpont C. Bicknell, a
freelance newspaper writer and prospector, shortly after her return from the
Superstition Mountains in September of 1892.
It is with the coming
of Pierpont C. Bicknell that things become murky. Prior to Bicknell’s arrival, there was little
public mention of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.
On November 17th, 1894, an article
by Pierpont C. Bicknell describing a lost gold mine offering unlimited riches was published in the (Phoenix) Saturday Review. Bicknell wrote during
the age of “yellow journalism” when newspapers reveled in stories based on sensationalism and crude
exaggeration. Bicknell did not
disappoint.
Bicknell whetted the
appetite of the would-be treasure hunters and made the search seem relatively
simple. He wrote, “The district designated is not extensive. It lies
within an imaginary circle whose diameter is not more than five miles and whose
center is marked by the Weaver's
Needle, a prominent and fantastic volcanic
pinnacle that rises to a height of 2500 feet.
The legend of the
Lost Dutchman’s Mine might have withered into insignificance had it not been
for the mysterious death of Adolph Ruth, an amateur treasure hunter, in the
summer of 1931.
The same year, a group of folklore-loving
boosters founded the “Dons of Arizona” to promote the colorful folklore of the
state, including the Legend of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine. In 1945, Barry Storm published Thunder God’s Gold, which was made into
a major motion picture Lust for Gold
in 1948, starring Glenn Ford as Jacob Waltz.
In 1949, the Peralta Stones were unearthed, giving a further boost to
the legend. In 1964, Life magazine did a spread on the
Peralta Stones, giving yet further credence
to the legend.
Whether true or not, the Lost Dutchman's Mine is the most
famous treasure legend in American history. The Lost Dutchman's story
has been written about at least six times more often than the story
of Captain Kidd's famous lost treasure.
According to one estimate, eight thousand people annually make some
effort, however half-hearted, to locate the Lost Dutchman's Mine.
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