Legends of the Lost

Early Hispanic and Anglo settlers in Arizona seem to have freely borrowed the name of Montezuma when they needed something to call a landmark. That might have surprised the Aztec emperor, who died in 1520 and whose realm never extended so far north.His name has been applied to several Arizona features, including at least three mountain peaks called Montezumas Head. Two of the peaks are included in legends of hidden gold a lot of hidden gold, if the tales have a grain of truth in them.

Let's dispose of the first story first, since its documentation is thinnest, and it has the ring of Native American legend possibly misinterpreted by the ears of white men. That particular prominence called Montezuma Head is in the Ajo Mountains southeast of Ajo, near the U. S./Mexico border on the Papago Indian Reservation.

A Tohono O'odham (in recent years the Papago resumed their original name for themselves) story tells how the people's ancient ancestors hoarded "free" gold taken from placer mines in Mexico mines so rich that gold could be collected from the surface of the desert and from creek beds. Remember that many of the Tohono O'odham would have liked to disregard the international boundary, since outsiders surveyed it through the middle of a domain the Tohono O'odham have always considered theirs.

And such rich gold fields did exist in a place or two: another lost-mine yarn tells of such a placer field northwest of Tucson. And north of Phoenix, the discoverers of the Rich Hill district really did find gold atop the ground.

At any rate, after the Tohono O'odham stashed the treasure in a cave on Montezuma Head, Montezuma himself climbed to the top of the mountain and turned to stone; he lies there today, guarding his gold. The white man who first heard that yarn and passed it on might have gotten a Tohono O'odham god mixed up with Montezuma, but it made a pretty good story.

There's a lot more sense to another story written in the 1950s by Milton F. Rose of Phoenix, who spent years look-ing for lost mines and writing about them.

The southeastern-most prominence of the Sierra Estrella range, southwest of Phoenix, is called Montezumas Head. It lies on the Gila River Indian Reservation, home of the Pima people, who would have objected to outsiders looking for gold in their land.

The northern two-thirds of the Estrella mountains were off the reservation, however, which is why Rose and his father were looking for abandoned Spanish mines there in 1930. Rose said they found two ancient gold mines

SEARCHERS FAIL TO UNCOVER THE SPANISH GOLD BENEATH MONTEZUMAS HEAD

with remnants of crude tools as well as rude "chicken ladders" used to carry miners down into the shafts. Such a ladder consisted of crosspieces strapped to a single pole with wet rawhide thongs that were allowed to dry in the sun, locking the crossbars to the main pole.

The reason the mines had been abandoned, Rose wrote, was because the Spaniards found a much richer mine on the plain south of Montezumas Head on what is now the Gila River reservation. And thereby hangs a classic tale of gold, death, and mystery.

During their several fruitless searches into the Estrellas, the Roses befriended an old sightless Pima called Chief Six. He and his wife lived in a house beside one of the trails to the Estrellas. At the end of each of their trips, the Roses stopped at the chief's for a drink of cool water. Each time, the chief asked for a progress report on their searches.

As their friendship grew, the chief told the Roses where they might find three abandoned mines two gold mines and one silver mine in the part of the mountains that was not on the Gila River reservation.

Chief Six calculated that he was more than 100 years old when he told the story, and he said that in the time of his father's father, Spaniards were free to roam the desert, prospecting for gold. All of the desert Indians Pima, Tohono O'odham, and Maricopa were friendly to the outsiders. And so the Spaniards dug the three mines in the Estrellas.Rose described in the magazine True West for November/ December, 1958, how he and his father found the two offreservation gold mines and profitably extracted some gold from the second mine.

Chief Six also told the Roses of the hidden mine south of Montezumas Head, on the reservation the mine for which the others had been abandoned.

He said gold could be seen in the rocks on the ground's surface, just as it was in the other legendary placer fields of the Southwest. Beneath the surface, there was more gold than there was rock, the old man said. The mine was much deeper than the other mines in the Estrellas. Side tunnels ran off at several levels.

The old chief told how the Pima rose up and killed all the Spaniards who worked the mine. Well, maybe not all the Spaniards, as we shall see. Chief Six may have been referring to the Pima Revolt of 1751, but given his age and the assumed age of his grandfather, it is more likely he talked of some more isolated rebellion at a later time. And the intruders could as well have been Mexicans, with considerable Indian blood, as Spaniards. Oral history is not always precise on the fine points of a story.

At any rate, the Pima hid the mine. Ironwood logs were placed over the top of the shaft, and dirt was piled on top of the logs, then smoothed to look like desert surface.

Chief Six told Rose, “It is so well hidden that no white man or Indian will ever find it. All gold along the surface had been completely removed. The Pima labored many days carrying dirt to cover the place to the depth of several feet and to make the ground as it was in the beginning. Cactus and mesquite had been planted in the ground to help conceal any trace of disturbance.” The old chief said that even if he had his eyesight, he could not find the mine, although he believed he knew its general location.

Milton Rose looked for that mine and the silver mine, but never found them. But he wrote that he did run across one bit of corroborating evidence that the fabulously rich gold mine existed.

One day a Mexican about 18 years old rode into the Rose camp on a burro and asked if he could spend the night. Rose figured he was looking for one of the lost mines.

After a lengthy roundabout discussion, Rose learned that the young man was not looking for either of the mountain gold mines. Nor was he looking for the still-missing silver mine. He was looking for the hidden gold bonanza, and he told Rose why.

His great-grandfather, then a teenager himself, had been one of four men who escaped the massacre by the Pima. The four made their way home to Mexico and told of a mine so rich that common ore rock was “wired together” with veins of pure gold.

Years later, his great-grandfather returned alone and found a side vein that the Spaniards or Mexicans had discovered just before the Pima attack. The great-grandfather packed all the gold he could onto his burro and returned to Mexico.

The young man told Rose he had a map showing the location of the mine. Rose warned him that if he was found prospecting on the reservation, or taking gold from it, he might be killed. The young man said he would take his chances.

Understandably, he was not willing to share his map with Rose. But in exchange for food, he pointed out the approximate site of the rich gold mine.

Rose wrote that he never saw the young man again. And so far as is known, the fabulous lode found by the Spaniards long ago still lies hidden in the desert somewhere south of the Sierra Estrella.