Legends of the Lost

It's been called the legend of Jones' gold. But to many, the legend is fact. As recently as 1979, an old prospector told the Tucson Citizen: "A lot of people are running wild over the mountains lookin' for color."

One account stated that bars of the precious metal were piled one upon another in an underground chamber carved from bedrock in the rugged Huachuca Mountains, 70 miles southeast of Tucson.

The fantastic discovery reportedly was made in 1941 by U.S. Army Sgt. Robert Jones, stationed at Fort Huachuca. He and a second GI named Mayes were hiking in nearby Huachuca Canyon when Jones fell 32 feet into a partly hidden mine shaft, landing unscathed in a subterranean room, according to the Citizen.

Mayes stayed aboveground but dropped a flashlight down to his friend. Jones was then able to locate a connecting tunnel at the base of the shaft and follow it to a room whose contents staggered the soldier's imagination.

"Gold and silver bars were stacked along one wall like cordwood," Jones told reporters in 1959. "And there was a big box, as big as two or three washtubs. It was full of gold nuggets, and there was another container full of white and gold powder."

Jones also said he found a green bottle in the room. "It was like a jug, about quart size," he said. "Inside was a map. I think it had Spanish writing on it. It was made of something like sheepskin."

After Jones climbed back out to the surface, he and Mayes concealed the shaft's opening with rocks and shrubs and left clues to mark the site for their return.

Back at the fort, Jones relayed the amazing story to his commander only to be told he was loco, and that if he ever broached the subject again he'd wind up in the stockade, the Citizen reported.

But Jones returned to the site several times, although secretly. The Citizen said that on one of his clandestine trips, Jones removed a portion of a single gold bar and took it to Douglas, about 60 miles away, for analysis.

An assayer there told Jones that his find was indeed the genuine article: gold. That small piece alone was worth almost $900. The value of the entire treasure was estimated at $2 million to $3 million.

Jones took the money from the sale of the bit of a single bar and threw a party for his soldier friends. The sum turned out to be the most tangible reminder he'd ever have of the great wealth in that underground vault.

Jones and Mayes were shipped overseas to fight in World War II. Mayes, whose first name is not known, reportedly was killed. Jones made it back safely and departed Fort Huachuca after the war, then retired in Dallas, Texas, on a military disability.

Because of his lack of money and poor health, which kept him in military hospitals for nine years, Jones didn't go looking for the treasure until January, 1959. According to news accounts, the unemployed stonemason showed up at Fort Huachuca with $5 in his pocket and what he said were exact directions to the gold.

Army officials agreed to conduct an exploratory dig, but at a depth of 12 feet the hole filled with water. Lacking hard evidence of the treasure's existence, the Army then called off the hunt.

Over the next eight months, Jones made seven trips to the fort attempting to convince the Army to continue the search. With the help of a lawyer, he got signed affidavits from two of the men he served with at the fort, swearing that the story he told was true.

Finally, in September, 1959, after checking Sergeant Jones' unblemished military record, the Army did an about face and resumed what it designated Operation Treasure Hunt.

By now, Jones' tale had been picked up by the media. Television stations from Phoenix and Los Angeles sent people to film the dig. The assembled press included Life magazine, whose photographers planned to capture the great unearthing of Jones' treasure.

With a Secret Service agent standing by under orders to confiscate the cache for the government, and armed military police ringing the search site, Army earth-moving equipment gouged a crater measuring 440 feet wide and 26 feet deep.

At one point, when a bit on a drilling rig suddenly dropped six feet without resistance, many of those on hand believed the treasure room had been found. But workers soon realized that what they'd discovered was only a natural passageway through decomposed granite, most likely worn by water.

But hopes were not entirely dashed. Dynamite was used to clear away chunks of earth and rock, bringing the excavation to a depth of more than 30 feet and unearthing some tantalizing discoveries.

Jones had said the underground room was constructed of rock and a "hard red material that looked something like adobe." In fact, diggers did find red material in the dredged-out soil. They also found a shard of green glass that might have been a portion of the jug Jones saw in the room. Two and a half weeks of work produced those two bits of evidence. But no treasure. Army officials, believing they had done their best, again halted the project, and ordered the hole filled.

But Jones wasn't finished. In 1963, he received permission from the Army to resume his search without military participation. This time, Jones was assisted by a Prescott contractor. Again, the dig was unsuccessful, called off after 17 days because of mud slides caused by flowing water from underground springs.

Jones died a short time later, but interest in the treasure didn't diminish. Others continued searching for it.

The most promising expedition came in May, 1975, when Quest Exploration Corporation of Tarzana, California, was given permission to dig by the General Services Administration after preliminary tests revealed the presence of underground caverns.

The Arizona Daily Star reported that Quest's searchers, using sophisticated seismic equipment, did discover a shaft that connected to an underground cavern, but both were filled with silt.

Col. Arthur V. Corley, headquarters commander at Fort Huachuca at the time, told reporters that the equipment proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" there was no treasure in the ground. "If the treasure was ever located there, it has been removed," Corley said.

But Charles Kenworthy, president of Quest, said he wasn't discouraged completely by the failed mission. "After all, we did prove that part of what he [Jones] said was there," Kenworthy told The Star, referring to the discovery of a shaft and adjoining chamber.

To this day, some still believe in the existence of Jones' gold. In 1979, the Tucson Citizen published a story in which a black prospector called Don, who wouldn't give his last name, put a new spin on the old story.

Don said he had heard tales about an elderly man who was picked up at a ranch in Cochise County near the Mexican border. The man was ill and died without identifying himself.

Text by Leo W. Banks

Many believe the man was Mayes, the soldier who accompanied Jones when he discovered the treasure. As the story went, Mayes did not die in the war, but instead put his dog tags on a dead man, deserted, and returned to Arizona to claim the gold. Theories of the origin of the treasure still travel to this remote corner near the border between Arizona and Mexico. Jones himself told reporters the cache probably was buried 200 years ago, either by Spanish conquistadors or the Apache.

According to other published speculation, Juan Estrada, a Texas outlaw, buried the treasure after stealing it from a mint in Monterrey, Mexico. Another theory is that it was hidden by a wealthy family from Mexico during the 1910 revolution in that country.

However it got there, Jones swore to the end he was telling the truth. When Tucson Citizen reporter Don Schellie asked him about it in 1959, Jones said: "The gold is there. I know it's there. I held it in my own two hands 18 years ago."