Legends of the Lost

The legend of the Lost Dutchman Mine, a tale of greed, gold, and gore, unfolds in a range called the Superstition Mountains. Parts of the wilderness, located northeast of Apache Junction, are covered with large twisted boulders and gnarled pinnacles of eroded lava, an appropriate backdrop for mysterious and half-crazed pursuits. Pima and Apache Indians have long regarded the range as a forbidding place. But that hasn't discouraged the many prospectors and treasure hunters who believe a phenomenal gold deposit lies buried in the rocky fastness. The Lost Dutchman Mine, by far the most famous of Arizona's "lost mines," has been the subject of two motion pictures, approximately 50 books, at least one song, and countless magazine and newspaper articles. It has been featured on the television programs "Unsolved Mysteries," "Good Morning America," and "Nightline." Like most lost-mine stories, the tale of the Dutchman's gold is a mixture of legend, myth, and truth. "But 99 percent of it is myth," says Tom Kollenborn, who has explored the Superstition Mountains and collected data on the Lost Dutchman Mine since 1946. Every year, the one percent of the tale that is fact continues to attract hundreds who hike or ride horseback to the vicinity of Weavers Needle, a prominent pinnacle in the Superstitions, searching for the rich lode of gold that Jacob Waltz, a German immigrant, may have worked in the late 1800s. Kollenborn, a school administrator and author, and his friend, Bob Corbin, Arizona's attorney general from 1979 to 1991, spend many weekends each year riding horseback into the range, either looking for the mine or escorting other hunters. Along the way, they have encountered a growing cast of characters who have their own maps and theories about where the gold is located. Many are secretive and taciturn, like the man Corbin calls "Spook" because he will not say a word to anyone he meets on the trail, though he's been walking and camping along it for many years. Most of the lost-mine hunters are single-minded and many are long-lived, like the 85-year-old man who regularly inches his way along the trail to Weavers Needle while leaning on his aluminum walker and carrying a 60-pound pack on his back. "Everybody thinks we're a bunch of kooks for looking for the Dutchman's mine," Corbin confesses. "They think we're crazy, and some of these prospectors actually are crazy, but I love it. People come from all over the world to look for it." Depending on which version there are many is accepted, the story begins with a Spaniard named Peralta or the German loner named Waltz. Waltz was 38 when he emigrated to the United States in

MYTHIC TALE OF THE DUTCHMAN'S LEGENDARY MINE LIVES ON IN THE SUPERSTITIONS

1846; he was 56 when he arrived in Arizona. He prospected in the Prescott area before moving closer to Phoenix. In the spring of 1878, Waltz reportedly discovered a rich gold vein in or near the Superstition Mountains. In 1884, witnesses claimed they saw him sell small quantities of gold at Mesa City, Kollenborn wrote in his book, The Superstition Mountains, A Ride through Time (Arrowhead Press, Phoenix, 1981). In February of 1891, Waltz contracted pneumonia and was taken to the Phoenix home of Julia Thomas, a baker who was his close friend. He died there October 25, 1891, and was buried the next morning in a pauper's grave in the old Phoenix city cemetery, a couple of blocks from where the state Capitol stands today. Julia's house was the end of the road for Jacob Waltz; for everyone else who has pursued his elusive treasure, it was merely a fork in the road. From his deathbed, Waltz supposedly told someone the location of his gold mine. But whom did he tell? Was it rancher Dick Holmes, as Holmes' son, George (Brownie) Holmes, maintained, or was it Rhinehart Petrasch, Julia's teenaged foster son? Brownie said that Waltz told the elder Holmes he'd been taken to the mine by a man named Peralta, a native of Sonora, Mexico. Waltz and a friend supposedly rescued Peralta from an outraged gambler who had stabbed him; the grateful Peralta expressed his thanks by showing them the mine in the Superstitions and later selling it to them. That's what Dick Holmes supposedly told his son. The father also was said to have claimed that he left Waltz's bedside with gold nuggets and directions to the mine. Even with this information, Dick Holmes never found the mine. From his father, Brownie inherited the gold nuggets, as well as a matchbox inlaid with gold the Dutchman had allegedly mined. Dick Holmes had spent the rest of his life in an unsuccessful search for the mine; his son continued the quest, also without success, until he, too, died in 1980. Some say the Dutchman never gave the elder Holmes the gold nuggets, suggesting that Holmes simply stole the gold from under the Dutchman's deathbed. Whatever happened, as Helen Corbin says in her book, The Curse of the Lost Dutchman's Gold (see Additional Reading), the gold did little for Brownie during his lifetime. When old age and sickness overcame him, the gold and the matchbox went to a Phoenix businessman who had paid his medical bills.

In his own account, Brownie makes it seem unlikely the Dutchman would have given his father anything. He said the Dutchman trusted no one and had even threatened to kill the elder Holmes when he once tried to follow him into the Superstitions. Why would Waltz suddenly have a change of heart and from his deathbed give the location away to such a man? asks Helen Corbin.

Besides, her husband, Bob, adds, Brownie's narrative has the Dutchman providing his father with a long detailed account of his life and the route to the mine at a time when he's lying in bed dying of pneumonia, barely able to breathe.

"I don't buy it," Bob Corbin says.

That Waltz would have shared his information with Rhinehart and Julia makes far more sense. Like Waltz, they spoke German, and both had nursed the man in their home for eight months.

Every "Dutch hunter" has a theory, yet no one has ever found the site, or, if anyone has as an Easterner named Adolph Ruth thought he had in 1931 they haven't lived to tell about it.

The saga of Ruth's methodical search for the Dutchman's gold ended when his body was found in the Superstitions in two parts: his skeleton in one place, his skull with what may have been a bullet hole in another. That one remains an unsolved mystery; no one was ever arrested.

Ruth's death was neither the first nor the last to be linked with the search for the Dutchman's gold.

There have been an estimated 68 deaths in the Superstition Mountains since the turn of the century, and many of them were connected to the search for the Dutchman's gold.

Jacob Waltz never drew a map to his mine, and some authorities have speculated that the gold the old man was seen with may have been from an old cache left by Peralta's ancestors or other Spaniards. Most treasure hunters don't accept that version, either, so the search for the Dutchman's mine goes on.

"There's at least 25 or 30 new guys every year going out there looking," says Larry Hedrick, director of the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum, "and many more we don't hear about. I think there's enough evidence to indicate that the mine existed, but you have to keep this whole thing in perspective."

"Yeah," adds Bob Schoose, a prospector and contractor who owns Goldfield, a reconstructed gold mining camp on State Route 88 about six miles northeast of Apache Junction, and who came here from California to look for the mine.

"But you have to realize that the real treasure is not in finding the gold," he says. "It's in the searching."

Author's Note: If you like mysteries not to mention riches you can begin your search for this treasure at the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum. Opened in 1990, the museum is operated by the Superstition Mountains Historical Society. It's located at Goldfield. (The museum is open from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. daily; admission is $1 to $3. For more information, call (602) 983-4888.) Additional Reading: Helen Corbin's softcover book, The Curse of the Lost Dutchman's Gold, is available through Arizona Highways for $12.95 plus shipping and handling; or stop by the Arizona Highways gift shop (weekdays, 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.), 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, or telephone toll-free 1 (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.