Legends of the Lost

Legends of the Lost_

Today the ragged slopes of the Cerbat Mountains are silent except for the occasional nighttime wailing of coyotes.

But more than a century ago, this range of forbidding desert peaks, running in a northerly direction from present-day Kingman, in the northwestern part of the state was the site of vigorous mining activity. The canyons rang with the sounds of miners' picks smashing against rock formations rich in gold and silver.

Today, there are only ghost towns and long-abandoned mine shafts in the Cerbats.

The first discoveries in the area were made by soldiers from Fort Mojave to the west. Civilian miners followed and, by the 1870s, communities such as Mineral Park, Chloride, and Stockton Hill had sprouted out of the desert to serve the miners' needs.

An early-day newspaper reported that "when standing on Stockton Hill, tunnels, dumps, mills, and mining shacks could be seen for miles around."

From 1870 to about 1910, more than $40 million in gold even more in silver was dug out of the Cerbats. But the work for most was hard and often unrewarding. For every miner who struck it rich, a thousand dug, cussed, and went away empty-handed.

But one chill October evening in 1873, a pair of men squatting by a small fire in the eastern foothills of the Cerbats felt confident they had come upon an easier and more expeditious way to line their pockets with gold. They had decided to rob a stagecoach.

In the latter part of the 19th century, stagecoach travel was the primary mode of transportation in the Southwest. And, since the coaches traveled primarily through lonely country, they were easy prey for robbers. The usual take was rings, watches, and the cash in the passengers' pockets and purses.

But, from a source never divulged, the pair warming their hands over the campfire had learned of the schedule for a $72,000 shipment of gold coins government funds destined for delivery to distant Fort Mojave.

The stage route over which the shipment would pass angled in a northwesterly direction just to the east of the Cerbats. A stop would be made at remote Canyon Station, snuggled against the foothills.

Then, after the horses were watered, the stage would ascend from a deep canyon to a summit and then drop down on the western slopes of the range to the mining town of Mineral Park.

The pair decided to stop the stage on its approach to Canyon Station. The taller of the two bandits, a man variously reported as Macallum or McAllen, glanced at his watch and nodded to his companion.

Then they stood, kicked dirt over the smoldering embers, hoisted their weapons, and walked out to the road.

STAGECOACH HEIST BEGETS KILLING, 119-YEAR SEARCH FOR STOLEN GOLD

There was nothing original or imaginative about the heist. Macallum stood in the road and waved the stage to a stop while his companion remained in the brush with a rifle trained on the driver and guard.

Once the strongbox had been thrown down, the stage was waved on a grave mistake since the gold was much heavier than expected, and the robbers had foolishly hidden their horses a good distance from the holdup site.

While the bandits struggled into the mountains with their burdensome haul, a posse was quickly formed with volunteers from the surrounding mining camps.

Somewhere along the intended escape route, perhaps at a predetermined spot, the outlaws stashed the gold. Within hours, they were surrounded by the pursuing posse. Macallum surrendered. His bolder companion tried to shoot it out and was killed.

Macallum, who refused to divulge the hiding place of the gold, was sentenced to a lengthy stay in Arizona's infamous Yuma Territorial Prison.

Built on a limestone bluff near the Colorado River, this "Devil's Island" on the American desert was situated in an area where daytime temperatures in summer frequently rose above 115° F. Some of the felons were chained to iron rings embedded in solid-rock floors.

Macallum, like many other long-termers, fell victim to disease and heat. But, before he died, he apparently gave directions to the hidden plunder to another prisoner slated for release.

Meanwhile, Andrew Goodwill, who had a number of mining claims in the Cerbats, moved into the Canyon Station building after it was closed in the late 1800s.

Goodwill, who died in 1935, told of a stranger who came into the area after the turn of the century and began scouring the hills.

"He wasn't a prospector," said Goodwill, "but he sure was lookin' for somethin'.

Finally the stranger told Goodwill that he had been in the Yuma prison and had been given directions to the lost loot. He asked Goodwill to join him in the search, but apparently Goodwill had never heard about the robbery or was otherwise uninterested.

After an extensive search, the stranger told Goodwill he couldn't locate the required landmarks, and he left the area. In 1973, at the age of 90, Nelle Clack, a former Mohave County superintendent of schools, was interviewed on the subject

CHLORIDE CERBAT MOUNTAINS CANYON STATION

Of the hidden cache of gold coins. For a long time, Mrs. Clack had held interests in the White Eagle and C.O.D. mines, both located in rough country high above the old Canyon Station stage stop. Many years earlier, according to the interview, Mrs. Clack had located a cave high in the mountains in the vicinity of the two mines."The entrance was between two huge boulders leaning against each other," she told the interviewer. The cave, looking down on the stage route and distant Canyon Station, was an ideal observation point for someone intending to rob the stage. Mrs. Clack said she peered into the cave and saw some rusted cooking implements and other evidence that the place had, long ago, been occupied. Afraid of rattlesnakes, she did not venture very far into the cave. Believing with some conviction that the cave was the hiding place of the lost loot, Mrs. Clack said it had always been her intention to return with help and search for the gold. But she never led anyone to the cave, and the directions she gave before her death were sketchy at best. The area in which the robbery took place is not difficult to locate on a detailed map of the portion of Mohave County just north of Kingman. From an exit off Interstate Route 40, just east of the city, Stockton Hill Road runs north as a paved road for about three miles, then becomes graded dirt. After approximately seven miles, there is a sign indicating a left turn to the C.O.D. Mine. A few hundred yards beyond this sign is a fork that angles toward the northwest, and about two miles down this road is the sparse evidence of Canyon Station and the building where prospector Andrew Goodwill lived.

MINERAL PARK FORT MOJAVE WHITE EAGLE STOCKTON HILL C.O.D..

The C.O.D. Mine is about one mile south of Canyon Station; the White Eagle is about the same distance to the southwest. Both mines are in rugged, high country above the old stage stop. Quite possibly, within or around the triangle formed by Canyon Station and the two mines is the cave that Nelle Clack discovered. Perhaps the ex-convict who confided in Andrew Goodwill found the gold and merely said he hadn't. Maybe certain posse members returned after the capture, located the chest, and kept their find a secret. Possibly, the bandits hid the gold successfully, but not in Nelle Clack's cave. At any rate, the loot, worth $72,000 at the time of the robbery, would at today's gold prices - be valued at more than $1 million.