Legends of the Lost

This legend has been known by many names, but its most popular title has been the "Lost Apache Gold Mine." As the story goes, several men from Antonio de Espejo's 1583 expedition to the Tierra Incognita, unbeknownst to him, found gold in a canyon seven to 20 miles north-north-east of Jerome in the wild Sycamore Canyon area.

The men took samples of the ore, made location maps, and then left Espejo's party to return to Mexico City where they told Catholic church officials about the mine.

In 1620, Jesuit priests, using the men's extremely accurate maps, went directly to Sycamore Canyon and the mine. Overjoyed, they returned to Mexico to tell an enthusiastic story that verified the earlier report.

However, due to church restrictions and roaming bands of hostile Indians, 100 years elapsed before any Spaniards returned to central Arizona.

Several priests went to the mine accompanied by soldiers and a few Spanish families in 1720. They brought with them 200 Opata Indians from Sonora to do forced labor. They worked the rich lode for about 40 years as a "bootleg mine;" the mine was not recorded in the Spanish "Royal Registry of Mines" because the Jesuits did not wish to share their gold with the king. Mules and burros carried the gold to Mexico City.

But, for some unknown reason, the Jesuits, according to the tale, abandoned the mine about 1760.

THE 400-YEAR-OLD APACHE GOLD MINE REMAINS THE BRIGADOON OF LOST MINES

The next chapter of the legend explains the name "Lost Apache Gold Mine." It says that the region's Apache Indians continued to work the rich vein after the Spaniards. But in 1765, a party of six wellarmed Spanish soldiers took the Sycamore Canyon mine away from the Indians.

Subsequently, the soldiers had to defend their mine against repeated Indian assaults but, because the ore was so rich, they were reluctant to leave.

During the following year, the soldiers processed a large number of gold bars. They loaded the bullion onto the backs of pack mules and started to return home.

As they attempted to leave the narrow canyon, however, the Apache ambushed them and killed four of the Spaniards. The two others hid the gold deep inside a limestone cave and fled southward to Mexico.

The 1767 edict of King Charles of Spain, curtailing Jesuit missionary activities in the New World, prevented further work at the fabulous mine, according to the legend, and the two Spanish soldiers never returned to Sycamore Canyon to recover the cached gold. But they left a map in Mexico City showing its location.

Researchers have said the map places the mine or the limestone cave not actually in Sycamore Canyon, but somewhere by the Verde River between what is now Clarkdale and Perkinsville, near the mouth of Sycamore Canyon.

The folklore of northern Arizona says that in 1853 Anglo prospector Cliff Haines stumbled upon the old Lost Apache Gold Mine. As Haines inspected the place, Yavapai Indians appeared and forced him to flee for his life.

Before he died, Haines drew a map of the area for John Squires, a Santa Fe prospector. Squires organized a party and, using the map, found the mine.

In addition, the men found the ruins of an ancient Indian cliff dwelling nearby, and inside they discovered old pieces of armor, which established the mine's link with the Spaniards. By 1874, the mine once more became a bonanza.

But, again, Indians attacked. Squires and the rest of the miners retreated to New Mexico, taking some gold with them. Shortly afterward, Squires was killed in a gunfight in Taos, New Mexico.

In the late 1880s, some of the surviving men returned to the Sycamore Canyon area, but, lacking Squires' map, could not find the mine again.

During this time, nearby Jerome began its development as a major copper-mining location.

In 1896 Verde Valley pioneer C.S. (Bear) Howard said he had found the Lost Apache Gold Mine. But Howard died without giving away the secret of its location.

Since then, many people claimed to have rediscovered the lost mine. In the 1930s, a tourist who had been hiking in or around Sycamore Canyon produced a photograph of what appeared to be the lost mine. But he had no idea where he had taken the picture. Pilots believe they have seen it from the air but can't locate it on the ground. Cowboys find it and then can't remember how they got there. Hunters of pots stumble upon it, not knowing what it is and then can't find their way back to it. As yet no one has been able to find the lost mine and then return to it with witnesses to prove its existence and place it precisely on a map.

One version of the rambling story attaches the famed Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo to the mine. But no evidence exists that Geronimo ever traveled that far north from his own territory in southeast Arizona.

A 19th-century historian of the far West, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1889 said the mine was situated near Bill Williams Mountain, 32 miles north of Jerome. But his book contains a map that clearly shows the mine to be in Sycamore Canyon at a site about 15 miles southeast of Bill Williams Mountain close to the intersection of the 112th meridian and the 35th parallel.

In 1950, Leonard Connor, who worked for mining companies in Jerome off and on between 1902 and 1943, produced a crude map that placed the mine in a rugged and remote side canyon running from south to north into Tule Canyon, one of Sycamore Canyon's main branches. On this map, the mine appears to be almost exactly where Bancroft's map showed it.

Other maps led people to believe the lost mine can be found near the Verde River between Perkinsville and the mouth of Sycamore Canyon.

Several versions of the legend persist today. One says the rich mine exists; another contends the mine has been worked out, but that the Spanish gold bullion still lies stored in the limestone cave. Some believe both the mine and the treasure cave remain waiting to be found.

Skeptics say all the stories are fanciful and foolish folklore. Still others hold that the lost mine is simply an early geographic mislocation of the rich copper diggings at Jerome.

The true story behind the legend of the Lost Apache Gold Mine may be forever untold. As the Spanish saying goes, “Los muertos no hablan,” “dead men tell no tales.” But . . . who knows? Someone might yet stumble upon that fabulous fortune.

See travel tips with back-roads story on page 54.