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You know there are hundreds of lost Mines in this World and the Southwest
in Arizona certainly has are share and chief among them is the lost Dutchman gold mine
the lost Dutchman gold mine ranks right up there with the search for the Holy Grail
the Noah's Ark and King Solomon's mind none of them have been more endearing enduring
are long lasting because I can't say that as the lost Dutchman go oh my Tom Kullenburn and I were
putting together the paperwork for the for the museum to get tax-exempt status and what have you
we learned from the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce that the second most asked question in Arizona
after the Grand Canyon was about the lost Dutchman gold mine
it was it wasn't the Superstition Mountains they were asking about it wasn't Jacob Waltz they were
asking about it was the lost Dutchman gold mine how did it get started how does it endure so long
and who are the people that are involved searching for the lost Dutchman mind what
kind of people are these it actually didn't start with the lost Dutchman gold mine
it started with the search for Dr Thorne's lost mine now we've done a story on the Lost Thorn
mine and then and I invite you to go back and and and see that it's a very interesting story
started with a fella named Cooley who met Mr Thorne over in New Mexico. Cooley was a
former Army Man Who and also packed for the Army after after the war Civil War
and him and a couple of his friends went out searching for it and were interrupted by Apache
Indians who didn't want them to cross into their territory so that story that search didn't didn't
come to any fruition and Banta who was with the group he was a newspaper man and he began
putting the word out on on this Thorne mine and that generated a great deal of interest to where
several brigades from four or five different towns came together with and informed a search group
of 267 men who went out searching for the lost Dutchman mine there's a man named Milton Rose who
claimed that Jacob Waltz was in that search group of 267 men and when they all although they found
some place or gold over in the Pinal mountains they've filed some claims and stuff like that
eventually everybody dissolved and went back to where they came from one man Jacob Waltz
continued to search on his own so evidently Jacob Waltz did find something there was real
gold under his bed when he died it was assayed by real people and made into jewelry and and stuff
of that nature some people that were involved at that time was Julia Thomas and Riney Patrash who
who were taking care of Waltz on his deathbed we have stories about that that you can go back and
watch and Richard Holmes and Gideon Roberts were actually with him on his deathbed and
this is what begun the search Julia Thomas had a a bakery and an ice cream store and she sold
everything she had there and finance the trip into the Superstition Mountains after Jacob Waltz died
so in 1892 in the end of July and the end of August and the hottest part of the year in Arizona
Julia and Riney and his brother and his dad all went out searching for the mine and of
course it they didn't find a thing when they got back she was broke and she began
selling maps for about seven dollars a piece back then that's quite a bit of money today
and then she was interviewed by a newspaper Man by the name of PC Bicknell and this is
really where the lost Dutchman Legend got its real start because when Julia come back there
was a small article put in the paper called the queer quest that just that made it just a blurb
about Julia and her search and that she didn't find anything everybody in Phoenix at that time
was Phoenix was only two blocks wide and three blocks long everybody in Phoenix knew that she
didn't find the mind but apparently Bicknell paid her a little money for the story and the story was
sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and however that works it gets out into another newspapers
and people it really piqued the interest of people and they started searching for the
lost Dutchman mine how did how does it continue to endure though what makes it so Fascinating
People knew that they didn't find anything but Bicknell kept putting out a couple of stories in
1894 and 1895 and it just continued to keep people interested in this search for lost Dutchman mine
then of course we had Adolf Ruth who a Dr Ruth who in 1931 went out there and lost his life and
a great search for his body took place and and this this was well publicized and more and more
people became interested in in the lost Dutchman gold mine and more people were searching then you
had a fellow named Tomlinson who was associated with the stone maps that were found in 1949
and this began a whole another round of searching and that story was eventually published in Life
magazine and that was worldwide attention that was put on the lost Dutchman gold mine then there was
killer Mountain by a detective from Oklahoma City who'd done a lot of research and done a fantastic
job of organizing and found financing a search and a lost Dutchman and they tried their best
to keep it a secret when they found this what they thought was a lost Dutchman mind but it
got out into the newspapers and here we go with a whole other round of searching by a lot of people
then we have Chuck Kenworthy a very successful deep sea treasure hunter who was partnered for
a time with John Wayne and knew of Tom Kullenburn and he come out here and got with Tom and rented a
helicopter and they flew the superstitions with a magnetometer they hit couple of hot spots out
there particularly in the Peters Mesa area and this this just keeps the ball rolling about to
search for the lost Dutchman gold mine you have people that associate Dutch Hunters with the
knuckle dragging you under the Neanderthal man all bearded and and wearing animal skins and about the
ugliest person you ever saw in your life but you know if you clean him up a little
bit give him a shaven haircut he wouldn't draw a second look in her New York Subway
a great many of these people who have passed away all of them that I'm talking about we're former
military people Richard Holmes was a packer for the Army uh and he he he was a scout for the Army
and he packed for Al Sieber of all people brownie Holmes his son was a veteran of World War One
you have Charles Bill Barkley the brother of Tex Barkley the quarter Circle U Ranch
um Bill Barkley was a veteran of World War One and in fact his wife gave me his uniform and that
uniform is used in the color guard of America's mounted military history that that we took to
two presidential inaugurals and uh and uh was on display in a museum for nearly 20 years and of
course the feud between Ed Piper and Celeste Jones was another key factor that kept this story alive
and the interest that people saw in searching for Lost Dutchman gold mine and she's reputed to be an
opera singer I don't think anybody's ever proven that but that's one of the things that just lasts
forever about her being an opera singer then you have Bud Lane a veteran of World War II he was in
the Navy and he he packed and took care of horses for several of the of the people that had stables
around Apache Junction and uh he he took many trips into the superstitions taking people on just
on horseback rides and of course there's Crazy Jake well Crazy Jake was a a Korean War veteran
and I'm not so sure he was crazy unless it was crazy like a fox because he built
people out of millions of dollars and I've had many dealings with with Jake
he had he was living on some doctor's Ranch down in Chandler and there was a lot of horses down
there of course they didn't belong to him but I rented horses from him that didn't belong to him
of course he he was using most of the money for renting the horses to feed them
but uh I never done anything with Jake that was even slightly off hand he every deal we
made the money the amount stayed the same and if he was going to bring the horses to my house
he brought him to my house if I was going to pick him up down there everything worked well
Jim at was an Air Force veteran and uh he was a trained radiation technician
for Three Mile Island of all places and he worked at Palo Verde and he gave up this job
to be a caretaker out here at the northern most end of the Superstition a mining
district and he spent the rest of his life searching for the lost Dutchman gold mine
Robert E Lee was a veteran of World War II he made a documentary on the lost Dutchman
gold mine that that's available if you look it up on it on the internet and you have Doc Rosecran
who was a veteran of World War II.. Andy Sinbad I visited Sinbad one time at his claim which is just
just oh half a mile from the museum today and of course it no longer exists but he invited me in
his house and the first thing I saw was a model of about within about an 18 inch wingspan of a
P-51 fighter my most best loved plane of all the P-51 fighter plane when I was a kid in California
my folks worked at Lockheed and I used to lay out on the on the lawn at our house and watch
them dog fighting over Sunland California which is just across the Hill from Lockheed aircraft
then you have Dawn shade Don shade was a sergeant major during World War II and he's
the one that found the body of Walt Gadsler and set off the story of Unsolved Mysteries and just
another thing that keeps things rolling along and during the legend of the Lost Dutchman gold mine
and here we are today making stories about the lost Dutchman gold mine peaking the interest of
people and The Legend Continues and it always will continue and just being a major mystery of the
Superstition Mountain thank you for watching this episode of mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
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