The Lure of Superstition

"Today, as in bygone centuries, The Lost Dutchman remains remote to human observation, and Superstition itself seems to require a special faculty, or initiation, for its apprehension. One might believe a supernatural air hangs over this spacious sheet of stone, so spectral does it appear. In daylight, the atmosphere breaks, checks, and diffuses the falling sunlight like the globe of a lamp over the Mount. It does something more. It acts as a prism and breaks the beam of sunlight into the colors of the spectrum, under the play of low-hanging clouds. Rising majestically out of the desert mists, wrapped in clouds, and shrouded with infinite mystery, stands Superstition Mountain, like a great mirage and a dream half remembered.

No true history could be written of the Arizona Desert. and particularly the Valley of the Sun (Superstition lies about thirty-five miles east of Phoenix at the foot of the famous Apache Trail) without mention of this fabulous mountain, which is linked irrevocably with the lore and lure of this desert country.

The Spanish called the mountain Sierra de Espuma (foam mountain). And an Indian legend describes the eroded forms resembling human figures on top of the mountain as Indians who sought refuge on the mountain from a great flood and were warned not to make any sound until all the waters had receded; they disobeyed and were turned to stone a legend which is essentially nothing more than a distorted New World version of the Biblical tale of the disobedience of Lot's wife. The light streak running under the figures is said to mark the height of the flood.

Superstition reminds us of Sinai in that it is the Mount that cannot be touched by hands. The Apaches had a superstition that if they touched this mountain they would die, for years ago the savage Apaches murdered another tribe there, and so ruthless was the slaughter that even the Apache was frightened and made the mountain tabu.

Traveling through the bland air of the desert, Superstition, like all desert mountains, has the faculty of appearing greatly distant until you are almost up to it. A slight mist covers the jagged crest and we see in fancy those Indian warriors who once inhabited the top. Then suddenly the mountain looms in front of you you are at its base and in the many small canyons dividing the ground-mass of rock, stand groves of flute-like giant saguaro, like pipes of a huge cathedral organ. Linnets sing from their tops, and wrens are building their nests in the surrounding cholla.

distant until you are almost up to it. A slight mist covers the jagged crest and we see in fancy those Indian warriors who once inhabited the top. Then suddenly the mountain looms in front of you you are at its base and in the many small canyons dividing the ground-mass of rock, stand groves of flute-like giant saguaro, like pipes of a huge cathedral organ. Linnets sing from their tops, and wrens are building their nests in the surrounding cholla.

The Indians fear even to look into these canyons, terrifying, yet so picturesque, as they reach to the top and divide the mountain, giving the outline on the summit such striking imagery. The Indians believe that in these canyons dwell the spirits of those who were slaughtered and they groan and make continual intercession to be released from the dark recesses.

The Mountain is a subject for a painter. And it is well named. The tales told concerning it are legion, of those who went into its vast canyons in search of the Lost Spanish mines -never to return, lured by glittering gold to their doom. But one tale lingers longest and is told and retold oftenest-by wrinkled old denizens of the desert, by children who have heard it from their fathers by the newcomer to the desert who has only just read it. That tale concerns the Trail of the Lost Dutchman, richest bonanza of them all. And like all legends, with each telling something has been added, with each repetition something changed. Some there are who say that the story begins with a young Mexican lover fleeing the wrath of his sweetheart's father and seeking refuge far north in the forbidding Superstition.

The LURE of SUPERSTITION

For more than a half century this mine has held the imagination of the people of Arizona and the Southwest. Its story is one of the most colorful of the West's mining legends and down through the years the hope of finding the valuable mine has steadily faded.

From long before the time when Abraham weighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver, mining has remained a distinctively creative industry, and those who seek for precious metals have been called the scouts of civilization. It was the pursuit of golden dreams that sustained the weary marches of the Spanish explorers of America and actuated Coronado's quest 400 years ago for the gold of the Seven Cities. Though the Spaniards found no gold in Cibola, they found it elsewhere, and for centuries the greatest revenues of the Spanish crown were from mines now included in southern Arizona.

There is a saying in the Southwest that “the mines men find are never so rich as those they lost.” However, the story of The Lost Dutchman, a mine reputedly so fabulous that its gold would pay off Europe's war debts and leave a goodly sum for every man, woman and child in the United States, remainsan intense historical document, revealing an accurate account of the discovery and loss of the famed Spanish mines of Superstition Mountain in such a manner that there can no longer be any doubt of their existence. Moreover, clues to their location may be found to this day--as year after year the fascination of the lost mines entices all manner of men and women to trek into Superstition in search of elusive fortune. None has yet discovered it, though nearly all encounter adventures that are often bizarre and dangerous. Literally hundreds of prospectors, both professional and amateur, have searched for the Lost Dutchman Mine, and their luck has been uniformly bad. Some have never come back at all others have returned with pieces of human skeletons and accounts of almost dying of thirst, and still others have been mysteriously shot at in the wild canyons. The tragedy and violence connected with the Lost Dutchman have added to the strong conviction of Arizonans that Superstition Mountain is cursed. Some say that pygmies guard the mine; some think it possible that a few wild Apaches still live up there; and others believe that some prospector has found the Lost Dutchman and shoots to kill anyone who approaches the bonanza.

Today, as in bygone centuries, the Lost Dutchman remains remote to human observation, and Superstition itself seems to require a special faculty, or initiation, for its apprehension. One might believe a supernatural air hangs over this spacious sheet of stone, so spectral does it appear. In daylight, the atmosphere breaks, checks, and diffuses the falling sunlight like the globe of a lamp over the Mount. It does something more. It acts as a prism and breaks the beam of sunlight into the colors of the spectrum, under the play of low-hanging clouds. If you are lying in the sands of the desert at night, with perhaps only a saddle for your pillow, thoughts of the unattainable and unsurmountable come creeping out of the stygian blackness of the mountain. How artfully this Mountain has been made difficult of solution! As the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse.

In September 1846, Spanish Dons from Mexico traveled the trail from old Sonora on past San Xavier Mission and Tucson to the “face on the rock.” They reached the present site of Mormon Flat and discovered a placer deposit so rich that it alone made the fortunes of two of the Dons. Only a bonanza containing unimagined wealth could have poured forth such a store of gold. The two arrastres erected on the site are now covered by the waters of Canyon Lake. Meanwhile Pedro Peralta, leader of the miners, set out to find ore to be ground in those arrastres. Led by the little gleaming particles, he went up Salt River to La Barge Creek, then on up into Boulder Canyon, and finally into Needle Canyon where he first came within sight of the huge, hat-shaped peak or picacho which he named “El Sombrero.” Here, on a blacktopped mountain to the west of Needle Canyon he discovered not one bonanza as he had expected, but eight. Back once more at the placer workings on the river, Don Pedro captivated his brothers with a glowing account of his discoveries and showed them ore such as few are privileged to see. To each brother he gave a copy of the map which he had made, showing the way to the mine.

For many weeks the Indians had been secretly regarding the sudden activity of the miners. They were puzzled for gold to them had no value. For what were these men digging? For months Old Superstition and the Apaches quitely looked upon this piracy. Then with the coming of spring in 1848, entrenched in their mountain fastness, inspired by revenge and commanded by cunning and intrepid chiefs, the Apaches began to attack with unshrinking obstinacy.

In such fashion Old Superstition struck! She had lured her first victims and revealed her incomparable treasures. And that sight brought death.

The Apaches quickly ambushed the requa or pack train. They could use the leather of the sacks. The animals were driven off, and scalps were taken to be hung in the wigwams far to the north. But into the sand wash they dumped a gleaming fortune. It is stray rocks from this float that have started many of the gold rushes in that big canyon north of Superstition. In 1914, C. H. Silverlock and a partner found gold ore concentrates which brought them $18,000 as they dug upon the sight of the massacre. But the source of that gold--Superstition alone knows.

Today there remain no mine shafts or ore dumps to show that mining had ever been carried on in Superstition. To be sure, there are other clues which definitely prove that gold was mined; the stumps of trees which had been cut for mine timbers, the charcoal pits, the occasional pieces of fabulously rich ore that are found from time to time, always in the same locality. There is a reason for this. After General Lawton defeated the Apaches in the Tonto Basin in 1863, the Indians realized they would be obliged to give up Superstition. They did not want another horde of ruthless men molesting the sacred territory of the Gods. And they were vindictive because of their inability to hold their favorite grounds before the advance of the Lawton and Crook cavalry. So they obliterated every dump and mine in the vicinity. Over each mine they fitted a covering of logs which was then covered with a caliche cement which in time becomes as hard as rock. Then over the whole was placed another camouflage, this time dirt and stones to blend with the surrounding ground. Curiously, one shaft they left uncovered. This shaft was destined to inspire vivid romance ranking second only to that which surrounds the Golden Fleece of the Occident the Lost Pegleg. It was the richest bonanza of them all-it became famous as the Lost Dutchman.

In 1932, Roy Howland of Mesa visited the scene of the mine and related his finding of clues left by the Spanish Dons; spurs with three-inch rowels that tinkled like a vestry bell, cinch rings picked up at the Old Peralta camp near Weaver Needle; great piles of ashes from hundreds of cords of mesquite wood and many cords rotted down covered with mold of decades; powder flasks and bullet molds for the old Colt horse Hundreds of men like Charlie Williams have risked death in search of gold in the vast reaches of famed Superstition mountains. (Chuck Abbott)

The LURE of SUPERSTITION

pistol carried in the early 19th century; quaint handles wound with fine copper wire and decorated with raw-hide grommets, which none but Mexican hands could fashion; round drill steel that was in general use then; and little piles of human bones mute testimony of the greatest unrecorded massacre in the untamed West.

Such is legend. Time has hallowed the tale, mellowed and embellished it until it has become a part of the spirit of romance which hangs over the purple valleys and ragged peaks of Superstition.

Still carefully concealed in this mysterious mountain is a shaft fourteen “Mexican ladders” (about 70 feet) deep which goes down on an 18-inch vein of quartz that will run several thousand dollars to the ton. This quartz ledge is one of the rose-quartz variety with a few inches of crystal hematite and quartz on the hanging wall side. The few inches of the hanging wall ore is about one-third gold. The rose-quartz is generously sprinkled with pin head size lumps of gold.

But even today, all the dangers of a lonely frontier must be braved by those who search for gold; desert heat which well-nigh sears the eyeballs; thirst which parches the tongue; poisonous reptiles and insects whose bite might be fatal. And such empty stillness! As only the desert knows. If you think to break that silence by crying out you will be most disappointed, the sound goes but a little way. The Lost Dutchman, which may well prove to be the richest mining region in Arizona, will one day rise from the dim corridors of time that stretch through Arizona's endless yesterday. But he who finds it will have to find first the clue to that mystery, as luminous and yet as impenetrable as its own mirage, that hangs over Superstition.