[Music]
howdy folks I'm Hank Sheffer and welcome to another
true life story right here with Larry Hendrick on Mysteries of the
Superstition Mountains you know we've all got our crazy Jake
stories and we've already talked about those on previous episodes and stuff and
it'd be fun to go back and look that up but I I know that crazy Jake loved to
intimidate people but he was not a guy that I would ever be that concerned
about if he was gonna bump you off he'd have somebody else do it he wouldn't do
it himself and but this particular time Tom and I went out to quarter circle you
or he had permission to leave his vehicle is he used to work for him you
know and we were going to a certain place but
we didn't get very far and he said well let's go over here to this particular
place and see if Crawford's doing anything and we approached what was
called Dutch Canyon not very far north of Peralta Canyon and all of a sudden up
Pops's this guy with a little automatic pistol both hands holding it on Tom and you know and
and I immediately dropped my hand down on my pistol and just rested my hand
onto the butt of the pistol if he shot Tom I was going to shoot him you know
but he finally he they he recognized who Tom was and that made all the difference
in the world he just he just bent over backwards with Tom and he Chuck had a
had a little boy with him a little kid I don't know if he was related or what I
don't believe he was even a teenager he might have been 12 might have been 13
somewhere in there and it turned out it was a girl and we went over to his cave
he showed us his pit where he had platinum you know when we when the
Historical Society cleaned up his house the garage had all kinds of beakers and
stuff in there and chemicals where he could test various rocks and stuff until
what kind of mineralization was in these rocks and he claimed he had a pit that
had platinum in it and this cave was a pretty good sized cave and he had
sleeping quarters in there and everything but he evidently was going to
abandon the place for a while and he asked if if he couldn't have some help
so we tied our horses and I we went in the cave and started carrying stuff up
the kid was carrying stuff he was carrying stuff Tom and I were all
carrying various things we walk cross the wash and he had buried in the ground
two 55-gallon drums with the tops that you could snap on and and and lock and
we stuffed all this stuff in those cans and and he put the tops back on it and I
kind of believe that stuff is probably still there to this day because it
wasn't all that long after that that that he he died you know within a year
or so on that and I've never been back out turned I don't care I didn't see
anything going in or that I wanted you know but you know Chuck was just another
Dutch hunter and a con man I got to put it that way
you know I've in the years that I've been associated with the museum I have
heard stories from literally hundreds of people that come into museum and and and
show you pictures of a heart or something that looks like something
that's about that big around you know like you'd go out there and find this
you know but I found it you know here it is and and that this is one of the clues
and all that sort of stuff and it's hard to contain yourself I remember one time
Clay was telling the story about a guy that came in there with this leather
piece of old leather with his map drawn on it and he wanted a considerable
amount of money for it he wanted to sell it to the museum and if I believed if I
remember right he was what in five thousand dollars but he wouldn't let
Clay see it you know and and Clay says you know you
and expect me to pay that kind of money if I can't see the thing so he laid it
out there on the countertop at the Museum and Clay looked at it and he says
you know this is a really old map oh yeah this is hundred years old he says
well you really shouldn't have drawn that in a ballpoint pen
[laughter]
this is kind of
a guy that we're talking about here with the Bob Wards and the Chuck Crawfords
and stuff this was a this was the first time I ever had a gun pulled on me you
know and it was exciting for a little bit you know what's something to do
[Laughter]
thank you for watching this episode of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
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