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
(sometimes spelled Walz) 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, at the Adams County
Courthouse in Natchez, Mississippi.
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 arrived in California in 1850. His name appears in
California census records. 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 Arizona Territory. Waltz’s name appears on
a mining claim filed in Prescott, Arizona Territory, on September 21, 1863. His
name also appears on a special territorial census in 1864.
Waltz mined in the Bradshaw Mountain area
between 1863 -1867.
Waltz moved to the Salt River Valley (an area near Phoenix
and the Superstition Mountains) in 1868.
He filed a homestead claim on one hundred and sixty acres of land on the
north bank of the Salt River. 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.
Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are mysterious,
forbidding, and dangerous. The
Superstitions are said to have claimed over five hundred lives. What were these people looking for? Is it possible that these mountains hide a
vast treasure? Is it possible that UFOs
land here? Is it possible that in these
mountains there is a door leading to the great underground city of the Lizard
Men? Join us as we explore the history
of the: Legends of the Superstition Mountains.
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