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welcome to a very special edition of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
and Larry Hedrick and I are right here by Buyus Butte that we mentioned in the
Dragoon pistols episode and there was so much more to talk about up here we had
to get up here we did a hike I actually did an opening before this before we
actually went up there but we found that it's so special the things that we found
up there and how hard it was to get there that we had to do something
different here to tell you that we are going up into this crevice right there
we are going to find an actual prospect an old prospect tell us about it well if
if our viewers have watched episode 2 of the Lost Dragoon pistols it gave the
background of how I became involved in Queen Valley area and Buyus Butte with
Hart Mullin's in 1958 Hart and his brother took my dad and I up to a mine that that
was explained in episode 2 and showed us a pit that was dug there and you know
the Mullins family were of true pioneers of Arizona his father Fred
Mullins was a stagecoach driver and Hart himself was born in 1890 I mean Mesa was
only a dozen years old, the Silver King mine had just barely been found all this
was total wilderness up hidden here and he was 15 when the Apache Trail was
finished and he was 21 when Roosevelt dam was finished in 1911 and he
homesteaded the Queen Valley area and it was about that time in 1915 he was 25
when he found this mine
and that makes it from today that he found this mine
hundred and three years ago
[laughter]
so this is a real
old dig and it wasn't dug by him anyway we came up and looked it all over and I
found that wheel borrow that we'd talked about and and that was handmade and that
type of thing so as we decided to go look at it ourselves we spent it doesn't
look like it's that far. no it doesn't look that much but it was four and a
half hours! Oh grueling I wouldn't even call it hiking. Mountain Climbing! some of the
slopes 60% slopes and loose diluvial like material. Look at your arm there..
and mine's healing now. and the last hundred yards took an hour in itself to
get there and Dave was the first one to get to the top that's the producer
Dave here. it took him 15 or 20 minutes just to go the last ten yards
because the brush had totally over grown. if you remember we were at least I was so tired
I said Dave just get some pictures and come on down I'm not going up there!
because I was so sick I know I was sick you weren't feeling well and Dave says
you got to come up here. you have to take a look at this okay! so we had to
blaze another trail to get up there because there was no trail and right to
the end there used to be four or five hundred yards of trail that was handmade
by somebody right up against the cliffs where they leveled off the alluvia,
alluvial fan there and made a that trail but there was only 50 yards of it left
and that's what we had to negotiate right at the end and why it was so tough
with a cat claw and everything. OH Gee! just tearing us to pieces. it was awful!
and the one thing I was certain of is that nobody had been there since I had been
there just know that is 1950s..1958 nobody you know what about that ladder
that's up there we needed somebody's gonna say wait a minute that ladder is a
little more modern well Hart died two years later in 1960
and his brother Jesse lived on after that and they were working this okay
they they they were not looking for an ore body they were not digging in on ore body
you know part of the legend the Lost Dutchman was that the Peralta's
came up here in a large party and were working several areas and they they were
caching some of the ore that they couldn't take back with him I mean once
they got a load they just cashed the rest of it and that's what Hart was
looking for he was looking for a cache that they had left behind and this mine
is old enough when he was born it was only 43 years after the famous infamous
Peralta massacre you know yeah and so fits that time line. the Timbers
that's up across the top of the the dig are native to this area when I was there
in 58 there were no trees in front of the cave and now there are six inch
diameter trunks of these trees had grown up you can't see the caves from here for
love nor money and those were so rotten those same kind of trees were so rotten
they were laid long before Hart found this. well now you've talked to some people
who are experts on the Superstition Mountains well and you've talked to some
of we won't mention names yeah but we've you've talked to some of them they had
no idea about this nobody knows that mine is there but but us three now. we have
talked about it and we looked I went down in that prospect that mine and it
doesn't look like anyone would have thought there was gold down there but
you were talking about caches of gold and this could have been a perfect place
to hide caches the best hiding place in the world you're taking your life in
your own hands go there and I recommend that nobody tries it!
welcome to a very very special edition of Mysteries of the Superstition
Mountains were we are going up and find what could possibly be one of the spanish prospects of the
Peralta's and it's it took a long time getting up there but we're going to show
you everything that we did up there and it was amazing and here we go.......
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all right Larry we made it
[Laughter]
this is incredible this is amazing that there's a ladder there and this is
incredible so hart Mullins believed that this was one of the original Peralta...
Peralta mines at least a Spanish mining you know we're on the east side here
yeah and one of the big theories is everyone's looking in the wrong place
some people believe that the Lost Dutchman mine is in the on the east side
so I'm telling you right now this is not the lost you mean on the west side well
on the west they believe it's on the west side and some wealth and then
people believe it's on the east side here but this is not the Lost Dutchman
mine and worse on the way the way up here we
saw all the symbols are on the maps we saw the three Red Hills we saw
everything that applies to lost much and I can see why heart believes this is a
Peralta dig we got pictures of the panorama there from the Ruth map the
three Red Hills it is an amazing thing that lends a little bit of credence to
it being on the East side and not the West
it's been 60 years for you. sixty years
I'm impressed but we made it and it was well worth the
trip it toke us what three and a half hours. four and a half hours to get here and I'll
tell you what I don't recommend anybody come up here and spend four and a half
hours to get to this spot you can watch what we're doing and you'll know as much
as we do yeah so there you go this is not something that you should come and
try to look for but it's Hart Mullins mine and he believed will you tell the
story tell us a little bit about if you recall in our previous episodes I had
told you that my dad retired out here in Mesa. I was working for Pete Allen
at Queen Valley and Pete must introduce my dad took Hart because I'd never met
him and they all pulled in the yard one day and so since I was
there I went along and we went to Elephant Butte and buzzards roost to
some claims they had and then Hart brought us up here and it wasn't nearest
brushes it is now obviously nobody's been up here nobody make a trail yeah
but Hart told us the entire legend right
here in this spot about the Lost Dutchman first time I'd ever heard it
1958 first time my dad had ever heard it and then he brought us here and he
claimed that he believed this was up one of the Peralta mines and he was working
it he left that's a redwood ladder looks it hasn't
aged much at all but he this cutout wasn't here at the time and he died in
1960 so he's been a couple of years work on do you think that's his ladder I
think that's his ladder and I see how difficult it was to get in here and
nobody's been here for ages yes so it possibly would be his ladder and it's
guarded from any from rain and anything like that but you know this goes down
what would you say about 30 feet Oh at least yeah. and they've got some of
the original wood here that it looks like was used at least I'm guessing now
it's some of the this is the trees that's in the local area here like this
tree here mm-hmm Wow so what we may be at now we're not
saying it's positive but what is believed to be one of the Spanish mines
one of the Peralta mines up here on the East end yes on the east end and
some people have the theories that this is where it was all happening so there's
all sorts of different theories well of course that handmade patinaed wheel
borrow and was as much proof that it was Mexican as anything that was a handmade
thing except for the wheel what should cast and that was around here that was
just over the cliff but it's obviously not there anymore. no... my dad took it home. ok!
oh ok ok after he died it was stolen
OK!
they did not take it out of here. once they were through they
just dumped it over the cliff and I found it out the bottom of the cliff
well if you didn't tell us that this was here
we'd have never found it oh I don't think so I don't think like you said I
don't think anybody's been up here forever though I'm confused myself as we
come up here because we didn't come the way we did it was much rougher than then
back then I mean it creates incredible how rough it was and this is also bear
country that a couple of times that I've been here 58 and 68 there was a senator
from Iowa and a friend that I'd met through the work that I did I used to
fly all over the North American continent making repairs on photographic
equipment and stuff and I met them and I told them the Lost Dutchman legend at
their house and they actually come all the way down here just to come to this
point so 1968 was the last time I was here well whether it's the Lost Dutchman
mine or a Spanish - still historic oh absolutely yeah it looks like there's a
drift going yeah there I'm not going down there no no no no you'd have to be
pretty brave to try that ladder now but I don't have any legs left all about you
not not after the trip up here but we wanted to come up here and show all of
you this and we'd like to thank Larry for bringing us up here anything else
you want to say about this mine? I am not coming back! that's all I got to say.
[laughter]
Larry we had to wait a week until we we recuperated to get back out here to do a
close but here we are buyus butte I have to tell you this is the hardest
hike we've been to so far hopefully we're not going to have another hike
like this at least not this year until we mend but there was no trail there was
growth everywhere that we had to either cut down or or knock down we didn't have
a machete which that was our fault but it was a grueling grueling four hours to
get to this mine and please do not attempt it now we're giving you a lot of
information as to where it is all you have to do is just drive down and see
where it where it is and you can match it up here by buyus butte but
I'm encouraging people not... not to do it not to do it this is not just your
everyday hike through first water or needle Canyon or anything like this this
is really bad and do not go alone and make sure you have lots and lots of
water and and something to eat because it's gonna take you some time if you do
and I know some of you will but I'm telling you please on my advice don't
try it this is one of the things that we like to show to you as what's out here
it's all part of the mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
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you