Legends of the Lost

The discovery of the gold ledge of Squaw Hollow was a spin-off from a massacre of Native Americans, a black page in the early history of Arizona Territory. In addition, two of Arizona's most notable pioneers, King S. Woolsey and John T. Alsap, were present when the rich ledge of gold was discovered in 1864. Neither circumstance helped locate the lode later. It was almost immediately "lost" as the result of yet another fight between whites and Indians. If anyone has found the Lost Mine of Squaw Hollow in the intervening years, it has not been identified as the legendary vein. King S. Woolsey was a rancher, freighter, miner, merchant, road builder, and member of the Territorial Legislature. However, he is best remembered for leading several civilian expeditions against Indians during the 1860s. Like manyfrontiersmen, he evinced a thorough dislike of Native Americans and contempt for their lives. In January, 1864, Woolsey led an army of settlers east from central Arizona where, just a few weeks later, the town of Prescott would emerge as the newly established capital of Arizona Territory. Estimates of the strength of Woolsey's party range from 12 to 60, but 30 seems a likely number. The group's primary mission was to exterminate Indians, a goal generally accepted by white settlers, who had been subject to frequent deadly raids. Its secondary purpose was prospecting for minerals, making the expedition a little more promising to men who had been hanging around the rudimentary mining camps in the Bradshaw Mountains. The civilian army traveled south along the Agua Fria River to the point where Sun City is now, then went east to the Verde River, northeast of present-day Phoenix. Here a halt was called for a few days while a small party went south to obtain supplies from Pima villages on the Gila River. The returning supply party was accompanied by 14

MURDER SHROUDS THE MYSTERIOUS GOLD LEDGE OF SQUAW HOLLOW

Maricopa, neighbors of the Pima, and two or three more white adventurers.

Woolsey's expedition traveled into the mountains to the east, probably following the gorge of the Salt River for a couple of days. Then they climbed out onto a mesa, crossed it, and followed a wash for several miles.

On January 24, 1864, as the whites worked their way around the base of a mountain, they saw a large party of Apache traveling along the ridge high above them.

The Indians came down the mountain, and a fight ensued. Five of the Indians were slain instantly. Another, wounded badly, raised his lance and ran it through a white who had been assigned to kill the chief.

The rest of the Apache fired a reckless volley and fled up the wash. The outnumbered whites pressed them for half a mile, then gave up the fight. Casualties were estimated at 24 Indians and one white man killed.

The fight is said to have occurred in Fish Creek Canyon. That would place the whites in a likely position to discover the Lost Mine of Squaw Hollow a few days after the fight, while they straggled back toward the Prescott area.

Squaw Hollow does not appear on modern topographical maps, but it was about 30 miles northeast of Phoenix on Camp Creek, a tributary of the Verde River. The homewardbound Woolsey party had a fight near there with a smaller group of Indians, who, when beaten back, appeared to retreat. Pioneers identified most Indians in the central part of the state as "Apache," but Camp Creek was more likely the territory of the Yavapai.

After the fight, the white men rested at Squaw Hollow. That night, someone suggested the surrounding country looked like a good place to prospect. The next morning, members of the party fanned out through the rugged mesquite-covered hills.

The next part of the story comes from John T. Alsap, also an early legislator, later one of the founders of Phoenix and Maricopa County and the first mayor of Phoenix after the town incorporated in 1881.

Alsap said some of the prospectors soon returned to camp with a hatful of the richest gold ore he had ever seen. It had been broken from a ledge, and the men who found it said the ledge showed a large quantity of exposed ore.

While the men celebrated the discovery and before anyone could go back to the ledge their recent Indian opponents returned with reinforcements. The fight resumed. But the Woolsey party was outnumbered and had to break camp and retreat toward Prescott.

It was years before the Native Americans were "pacified" so that prospectors could safely return to look for the ledge of gold ore. In the meantime, Alsap said, the finders scattered to the winds, each keeping silent about the bonanza, planning to return to it later.

Alsap had not visited the ledge on the day it was discovered. But years later, he spent weeks along Camp Creek looking for the gold outcropping. He didn't find it. Nor did he find prospect holes or old campsites to indicate that any of his former companions had been there searching.

The ledge might have been found years later, although the exact time is a little vague. Prolific lost-mine authors John D. Mitchell and Thomas Penfield both reported the story of a Hispanic sheepherder who was driving his flock toward the Salt River Valley from higher pastures to the north.

The sheepherder said he camped in Squaw Hollow with a man who was working a rich gold mine in the area. The miner was taking the ore from his mine to his camp on burros, crushing it in a stone mortar, and washing it in Camp Creek. Then he packed it out on burros, presumably to Phoenix, where he sold it.

The sheepherder didn't know the man's name. When he passed through Squaw Hollow in later years, the miner was not there. The sheepherder reported that a small pile of tailings remained along with the ruins of a crude cabin.

Both authors said that the area along Camp Creek is highly mineralized, a likely place to find gold. But it is also very rugged and brushy with manzanita and mesquite.

Squaw Hollow's location is something of a guess. Camp Creek is only about 15 miles long, and its upper end is a conduit for the well-traveled road that leads from the Phoenix area to Seven Springs and Bloody Basin, popular recreation spots. So the most likely place to prospect for gold would be in the lower few miles before Camp Creek joins the Verde River at Needle Rock. The Horseshoe Dam road cuts across this stretch, and there are several fourwheel-drive trails in the area. The Lost Mine of Squaw Hollow might have been mined out many years ago by the mysterious lone miner. Or it may remain hidden in the brush. As Penfield noted in Dig Here (Treasure Chest Publications, Tucson; 1986), it still might be found by someone patient enough to make a detailed search "on hands and knees" of the countless brushcovered ledges along lower Camp Creek, now part of the Tonto National Forest.