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howdy folks I'm Hank Sheffer and welcome to another true life story right
with Larry Hedrick on Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
today we're on location at Superior Arizona at the base of the cliffs of The Legend of
Apache Leap the legend of Apache Leap better known as the legend of the Apache
tears there's two versions to this story one of them is the one that tourists are
given when they buy a piece of jewelry made out of Apache tears and then
there's the longer version the short version runs something like the US Army
trapped a band of Apaches on top of a mountain and rather than surrender they
leap to their death and the with the widows and wives of the lost their tears
were absorbed by the Obsidian of the Apache tears that's the short version
that everybody gets and when these people that buy jewelry go back to their
home country and somebody says what's that they get the legend just exactly
that way and it's well known all over the world the long version has a lot
more information in it mentions General Stoneman it mentions Camp Pinal
or Picket Post which those camps were the names were used interchangeably and
it suggests that the fight actually started at the base of the mountain and
the Apaches no way to get to the top well Stoneman, General stoneman when he
established Camp Pinal at picket post about five miles west of superior he
immediately started to work on what is called today as stoneman's grade he
needed to build the road from Camp Pinal up to what we call the top of
the world today it's the highest elevation from where you come from
superior till you drop off down into globe and the reason for the
establishing of Stoneman's grade was the for the mobility of troops to respond to
Indian uprisings that that may occur and to avoid the use of
Devil's Canyon... Devils Canyon is an absolutely wonderful marvelous beautiful
place in it but it it floods the Queen Creek runs right down through Devil's
Canyon and it does a lot of flooding and therefore just exactly when you need a
path they can't use it plus the fact that in order to build in Devil's Canyon
you need modern equipment their soldiers could not move it's totally
boulder-strewn and it's just impossible to build a road in Devil's Canyon
Devil's Canyon is also at the north end of the very mountain that Apache leap
that took place in so the long version of the story also mentions that there
were 75 Indians involved in this this affair in 2013 there was an
archaeologist that gave it a lecture at the Tempe Historical Society and he just
he displayed brass cartridges that he found at the site on top of the leap I
couldn't find any information about the caliber of the of the of the shells
because he also mentioned the date of 1877 and that the shells that he found
the brass cartridges did not match the date of 1871 formally mentioned I you
know during the Battle of skull cave the primary weapon of the u.s. soldiers was
sharps rifles that had been converted from paper cartridges to brass
cartridges and they had a smattering of Remington rolling blocks the sharps with
a 50 70 caliber and the rolling blocks had a number of different calibers 43 44
but they also had 50 70 and I would assume the army would stick with the
same kind of a cartridge so they didn't have to stock all different kinds of
ammunition but if that particular brass that he displayed was 45 70
that meant that they were working with the trapdoor rifle which didn't come out
until 1873 and by the time it was issued to soldiers in the West it would have
been about 1875 or later and if if that would if it was 45 70 brass that he
found that would establish the date pretty well but it really doesn't matter
the finding of military brass on the hill which this man explained he found
brass right up at the very edge of the cliff and some of the brass was down at
the bottom of the cliff which indicated but the soldiers were firing down the
cliff and they certainly weren't shooting dead people if the Apaches had
found a way up the cliff he assumed that they were escaping and that's why the
soldiers were firing at him from the cliff and his conclusion was that the
leap didn't really occur it was it was firing and it's escaping Indians was the
the truth situation well you know in conclusion to this legend
nobody said Indians were stupid it looks like some of them got away but somebody
made an awful lot of money selling Apache tears thank you for watching this
episode of mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
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