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Oh welcome to another edition of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
and I'm excited to share this one with you Marshall tells us all about a
hitchhiker and how he became partners in the Lost Dutchman mine so how did you
become interested in Jacob waltz and the Lost Dutchman mine I moved out to moved
at the Mesa to teach school and that was when I first became enamored with the
Dutchman's mine and I thought like Many of thousands of others I thought I am going
to find this thing if somebody's got to find it and it just might be me who
knows and and you know so I went out I've been out there looking thinking one
of these days I'd you know several times and thinking of I I would be the one to
find it but I never even went very far in and I
just walked up down the trail hoping it would you know I'd see gold lying some where
I wanted to do it the easy way well I quit, I'd gave up
on that and then within about seven years 7 to 8 years later I was my interest
had shifted to history and I was writing I was writing a story one of the first
stories I ever wrote and it was on the Salt River Cave battle skeleton cave and
so I was going up to I was I was going up that the Apatche trail a few miles
south of tortilla Flat and just cruising along I had sitting next to me in the
seat of my pickup truck was was a ice chest full of beer and just in case I
got lost and out of out of where the road it kind of narrows into the wine in
there this looked like an apparition jumps out in the road and just stands
there and of course I stop and he comes over he's he's already opening the door
you know he says can I have a lift tortilla flat
I said sure and then he's already by that time by the time he got in he was
already looking in the ice chest and can I have a beer I said yup herself and so
he's drinking a beer and and we drove along a little ways and he says you know
who I am don't you and I said well no he said I'm Dugan
you know Dugan and I never did get his first name or if he gave it I never
remembered but I remember Dugan and good old Irish name and so he says I'm the
one that's found the Dutchman's gold and I said oh he pulls out of wallet he's
got a news clipping well these were the days and it wasn't that long ago that
all you had to do was call the Arizona Republic the state's largest newspaper
and say I found the Dutchman's gold I found the Lost Dutchman mine you'd be
guaranteed to have a spot on the front page I can remember every once in a
while there'd be somebody else found the Dutchman's mine somebody else did you
notice this it was just a it it just always was amusing I thought that that's
that's how you can get some recognition and so and I but he was pretty
convincing you know and he said you know what it's his back up there and he said
I can um I can sit up here and I can look down and I can watch people boating
down on canyon lake I thought this sounds a whole lot like the story the
Dutchman told so I figured he just maybe if he if he adopted the mine he says it
must adopt the Dutchman stories that people told about him anyway and so we
keep driving he's keep explaining to me all these things about how rich it is
and and finally we get to tortilla Flat and he said well here's where I get off
and he said you want to come in and I said no I'm going up the road I go I'm
gonna I'm looking for the skeleton cave and thinking I could see
it from the river and so so I said no I got I got I'm right now I'm working on a
story here and he says well thanks for the beer and he said say you know
you really you really rescued me today I was out there just dying thirst and and
might have you might have you might even saved my life and I said well look you
know that's what people do here in the desert and we look out for each other
and he said tell you what I'm gonna look out for you I'm gonna give you half of
the mine and I said well that's mighty good of you and just going along with it
you know just being being agreeable I wasn't going to tell him he didn't have
the mine and I'd wasn't going to tell him I didn't want half of it so so I
said yeah okay we're partners and he said yeah partners
and he headed on into tortilla flat and into the bar there and I drove on down
the highway and I never forgot it I never forgot the story because it was
you know but I never saw Dugan again either I did learn later that he was a
he was a fry cook a Bob's Big Boy down on Central Avenue and Thomas and and so
and I verified that later on because I would tell this story too when I was
teaching high school students I would tell him the story because I'd always
lost mines kids love that stuff and I talk about that and and I'd say now I I
want to tell you if if any of you guys ever the boys were always wanted to go
out and search for the Dutchman gold and I said if any of you ever
find it it's half mine and I'll tell you why and then I tell them the story about
Dugan so you got excited about it and then you wanted to pass this knowledge
on to your students and get them excited about it correct
I was always after my first book came out I was always being asked to speak to
aspiring young writers especially kids and so I would tell them now you want
you want to have success with that first book here's what you do
you you create a story about the Lost Dutchman's mine and make it really
believable and be specific as to where things are
but but don't tell them exactly where it is but they make your story make it
believable don't make it outrageous or anything just make it believable and and
it make it have any kind of any king of ending you want be creative and that's what lost
mine stories are they've all got pretty pretty much basic I found it and I lost
it and I couldn't find it again those that's it in a nutshell if ever lost
mines and and so they they they're going along with me on this and then I say it's
the cover this is the important part the cover you you need you need a cave and
you need to have a prospector an old grizzled prospector walking into this
cave and you need lying there on the ground right in front of him are all
kinds of gold nuggets you know in a wooden chest just gold everywhere and
gold coins lying around lying around on a cave floor all of these things and and
then you've got to have a oh you're gonna have a a Spaniard in a coat of
armor only it's a skeleton just a skeleton and and then you've got to have
a have a sword put a sword there and then and then you've got to have a
rattlesnake and you have a rattlesnake crawling and he's not just there he's
he's got he's going in one eye on the socket one I of the skull and out the
other and he's stickin his head out there looking big you know and mean and
and I said that's that's your cover and and there are enough Dutchman hunters
out there that if all the Dutchman hunters to see that they think he's got
a new angle on the mine that I might not have heard so I said you'll sell a
million so I'd always tell them that story and that was the that and then I
tell him I also had the oh but three to three years ago I wrote
a story about about Dugan for a True West blog I think it was and I get this
call from this fella is if either call or an email I don't remember which but
he said I am Dugan's nephew you had a story about Dugan and about Lost
Dutchman gold and I said yeah and he said he said that was my uncle he died a
few years ago but he really believed that he found the Dutchman's mine and he
was very convincing and he told me that he was a cook down at Bob's Big Boy when
it all happened and and said but II he he died taking the secrets I guess to
the grave with him so you recorded a song about gold didn't you well you know
that's that song Oh Dean Cook a good friend of mine wrote a song that I
recorded a few years ago on the Oblivion label of course and it was tall tales
and legends and it goes I never found the gold never even found a nugget no
outlaw stash nor mystic mother lode but as time goes by I realized I'd rather
have the stories than the gold well there you have it Marshall wanted me to
pass on that if you want some extra money you know who to go to the guy who
is part owner of the Lost Dutchman mine just another mystery of the Superstition
Mountains
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