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welcome to another episode of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains and
recently once again we were able to sit down with superstition mountain expert
Ron Feldman now this guy owns the OK Corral here in Apache Junction takes
people up there he's traversed just about every trail
there is up there and then some so he's a wealth of knowledge if you want to go
to anybody who knows about the Superstition Mountains he's the guy to
go to and I asked him the question about the mines themselves were the Peralta
mines the same ones the Jacob Waltz found up there here's what he had to say
does the stories about the Peralta's really play into this and the mine
supposedly that they had back there well the Spanish you understand we're
probably the greatest prospectors and miners the world's ever seen including
probably today but they were here Peralta's the Spanish whatever you want to call them
Yes I do believe that there was a Spanish party here they did
prospect heavily their name might have been Peralta, Peralta is like Smith you
know so it's pretty prevalent but you know the Spanish weren't stupid they
didn't go into the west side and prospect for gold because there aren't
any and you can't find any evidence that there would be but like I said the
quartz is wrong as Hydrothermal quartz predominantly doesn't have any
mineral in it Mesothermal , Epithermal of the two quartz is that run gold the
gold field mountains here where we're sitting is Epithermal and this is
a rich ground out here the spanish were here they they prospect didn't mind a
little bit here they weren't stupid and they went to the east side and they did
locate mines there and I do believe they were massacred by the Apaches not here
on the face of the mountain but over on the east side and then of course they
left the mines because they were massacred and I believe that the
Dutchman got into one of those.
so what you're telling me is that they were
actually by Weavers Needle in that area they were actually on the east side
oh they might have come out this way backtrack I had some of me a backtrack
this way well it's possible because they did
there were some that were here prospecting here we there was an old
Spanish tunnel found on this property
the way it was timbered and logged and so forth so yeah they did prospect here not heavily
but they did some mining over there you know when you consider on the east side
a spitting distance from where I'm talking about in the early 1900s, middle
1900s there was actually a mill there out of Rogers Canyon are you familiar
with Rogers mill
I am not familiar with the mill. I have been to the location I found
the remnants of it. I have a piece of rock that came from the mill that's all
melted from the mill that I picked up out there. nowis it on the way up to
Rogers trough in that area it's in well no it's actually beyond Rodgers if you
go into the wilderness it's off a Roger Canyon. okay, right up alongside Iron
Mountain. okay! the mill was there well what are they what do they need a mill
for in those times they were mining big time back there if you go into the
record you'll find all kinds of minds back there. yeah but were they after gold
or were they after silver? predominantly they were silver but with every gold
silver mine there's always gold and I do believe that the one mind that the
Dutchman work was a predominantly a silver mine that's what the Spanish were
working... silver!
but they found or he did..
a lense of gold
what they did was stoped up into the ceiling and took the gold out they've dropped it I can show
you mine up there well... I can't anymore and I welln't. but I can show you a mine out there were
this huge.. you crawl on your belly and you get to this room and the rooms as
big as at least as big as the inside of my building and they stoped up
it was stoped out so consequently that's the mind that I believe is the Dutchman
it's called the silver chief the silver chief was a name that came later and it
was mined in the early 1900s and but that is location of the Dutchman mine
that was in the superstitions it's in the wilderness. I did come across a mind like
what you're talking about but you didn't have to crawl in you go in they had the
pilings and the opened up into a big stoop that's over
by Ramar no, no.... no well okay yeah no and that's a totally different thing you
know the one yeah no that's not it had to walk across a railroad tie or
something yeah to it no that's not it
okay all right do you Ron I I don't know
what to say when you say that's the mine yeah
so then why hasn't that mine been verified
well that's a good question
also my son and I and Jack San Felice and a lot of some, other authors have written
about it and somewhat verified it as far as getting to the nitty-gritty and being
able to prove it there's only one way you're gonna prove it there's only one
way you would ever find the Dutchman mine geologically you have to prospect
your way to it so again you have to have the right elements for gold to even form
and you can prospect to a mine you can you know I haven't gone to the point of
saying even in my books although I do say this is the mind this was the mine
and this is where it is. I haven't gone to the point of saying okay now here's
the proof!
I'm not comfortable doing that right now
I can do that and I probably will someday I may write about it someday I
might do a TV thing I don't know I told you about a treatment that I did yeah
and that whole treatment was exactly what we're talking about the proof
now the other thing to prove this okay is you're gonna have to take people out to
the mine okay and now you're dealing with the Forest Service again and that's
going to be difficult and that's one another reason I can't just sit here and
tell you the proof you know I need to take you out and show whoever the proof
but.... and then we can put it on paper if if we were say to want to go out there
you could show us how to get there
oh yeah
okay but I... I you know as far
as you know filming anything commercial out there is illegal yeah okay so I got
to tell you that
how ever...
I have taken a lot of film crews
out there but there were always under the okay of the Forest Service
eventually I had to battle them but I always got approval from them it's just
very difficult now there are some loopholes there and once I had there was
a film crew from the Netherlands actually came out and they had a Dickens
of a time they couldn't get permission to go in there and that's what they
wanted me to take him in on horseback and I went to the Forest Service and
then all of a sudden somebody came up in the first service well if they're
filming digitally now this was years ago a digital camera that's okay well all
the cameras now aren't they pretty much did you so I mean there are I don't know
I.... I just know that there have been some film crews that I have filmed with on
the Dutchman in recent history and I've told him it's gonna be an uphill
struggle I'll help you all I can and what they've managed to do is they take
the easy way out they don't go to the Forest Service they'll film out here and
make it do are there places up there in the mountains that match areas on the
map that are not the right area the profile map yeah
well but there's a lot
of places that look like there's a lot I could take you to Rogers canyon and see
a duplicate map I can I can take you out here and this in the goldfields and show
you the map so the map fits a lot of places it's a lot of place and we were
out there we were out there Rogers the only thing you're talking about is the
needle that that really might kind of.... yeah, yeah, they say sombrero... sombrero
or El Sombrero... I can take you over to Salt River and show you
the map too so there's a lot of places yhat's it...that's it. like the
three Red Hills yeah the most one of the the most as I was saying there's only a
couple people that I would hang my hat on in their story and one I mentioned
inside the shop and that was John kochira and his story and I mean I
partially published it in one of my books but someday I may write that story
too but his history and what he found is the absolute proof that the Dutchman
mine exists and where it does exists and what is the
only thing what I asked you a question what is the only thing that would prove
in your mind that this is Dutchman gold well as I understand it has to match the
area geologically what I like to say it's has its own DNA there you go the ore
yeah it does that's correct
a hundred percent yeah 100 percent..100 percent and the ore that John kochira and his
brother he he was a customer of mine for 17 years I used to pack him in the
mountains he was a Dutchman hunter and he, he got it to a place in his life
where he couldn't come out anymore and we had become pretty good friends and he
said Ron he said I'll tell you I'm gonna tell you a story and he said 1962 he and
her brother hiked up on top of Peters Mesa, Malapi actually and in some
saddlebags and idea tailed the story I found 24 pounds a very very rich gold
ore and I've used a lot of it he was a jeweler he made jewelry
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you found it?
John kochira and his brother Joe and he said I have no use for it anymore and I
know you're interested would you like to buy what I have left and he had six
pieces left and I bought all of them and I gave one of the museum which promptly
I think has disappeared years ago but I won't get in any a story but the only
piece that is in existence today that I know of is the big piece I have and what
happened was I had the grand idea you see Dutchman or does exist you're
talking about the matchbox yes the matchbox and gold or okay he has that
too I don't know if you know who that is but
at a rate sufficient to say I've seen it many times and I I said I wonder if
there's a way to compare this well the way to compare it would be to what
kochira found to what Dutchman ore was that was left
and electron scanning microscope was the test well at that time I couldn't get
anything done with him like oh the only electron..... electron
scanning scopes were in colleges if you weren't a professor they and talk to you
so I that time and I just remember I don't know if you don't Tom Grover he's a he
was Dutchman hunter and he's written books on it Tom's a good researcher and
at that time I sold him a piece of..I had John kochira's ore
He was a professor I believe in Oregon he and I discussed this with him and he got the
job done and it's outlined in his book and there are records that exists so
what what he did he did even better than what I suggested he took he went to the
guy that owned Dutchman or and he he said okay I'll let it I'll loan it for
that because it's non-destructive the test he took kochira's ore he took all
the goldfield ore's the black, the black Queen, the Mammoth, the Bulldog and for
good measure he went and took the vulture mine at Wickenburg because
there's there's bullshit stories that the Dutchman got it from there so he
took all those in for a test and have you heard this story
no and the results were there really as I mentioned before only two really types
of quartz that kind of have epithermal mesothermal that's where gold is
deposited and on the west side there hydrothermal quartz veins
there's no mesothermal there's no epithermal now the results were that all
of the well I'll start with the vulture mine it was so different visibly from
anything else that he brought in didn't run it so it didn't even look like
anything including Dutchman or all of the goldfield ore's we're highly similar to
each other and they were epithermal quartz so everything out here is
epithermal now Dutchman or and kochira's ore was mesothermal and there was a
75% chance this is what it said that they either came
same source same location or a related source what's that tell you
so why did he find it on top of Malapai when I'm telling you it's ways east of there
well there is an old Spanish Trail that goes through there it's actually
monumented I followed most of it and it goes across Malapai high up and across
Geronimo and it comes down out of Salt River I've hiked that I used to go in
that way a lot and I do believe that the Spanish when they were prospecting out
there and mining they were packing it out and still the best way to get out of
the mountains was to the river and that would have been an avenue to go over the
high mountain tops rather than through the canyons and the brush and the
boulders go through the high mountain tops down into the river makes sense and
I believe they lost this off of one of the pack
whatever that's what kochira found so that in itself and the documentation
that happened is proof to me beyond a shadow of doubt beyond everything else
that exists that I know of that Dutchman or really is from the Superstitions
just amazing to me though that after all this time that nobody has ever really
been able to go back there which we need to do and document this well I have
documented some of it and and it's Glover's got it in his book Jack San Felice
got in his book Jesse's got in his book it's been on TV I've done TV
things where I've actually talked about the east side matter of fact the last
one I did was for America unearthed it was a history thing and that we talked
extensively about the east side so it's been out there but yeah as far as
documenting it I'd love to delve more into the kochira story and bring that
out and and that is kind of the proof of the pudding so how do we do that well to
honestly get that oh by the way I didn't tell you that the ore that is off the
silver chief or quotes the Dutchman what it is it's mesothermal which would
match up exactly yeah exactly and if you look at the match box real
close if you have have you ever seen oh well just pictures no okay
close you know what else is there as identifying chrysocolla
you know that is it's like turquoise it's related it's a copper it's green
like turquoise oh okay very promise yeah okay okay that's on the match box
and it's also on the silver chief ore it's on Dutchman ore and it's on kochira's ore. okay
since the time you're talking about nobody's gone back up there and you you
need to take us up there okay now you're gonna have to stick around to find out
if Ron really does take us up to the mine just another one of the many
mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
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