Legends of the Lost

LEGENDS OF THE LOST William B. Rood and the Treasure of Rancho de Los Yumas

You won't find La Paz, Arizona, on road maps, but for a brief period in the 1860s, it boasted the largest population of any town in the state. The reason for its short but glorious existence, not surprisingly, was gold. Prospectors recovered more than 100,000 ounces from placer deposits there, including nuggets weighing upward of four pounds.

Gold may or may not have been the reason that a man named William B. Rood sold his ranch south of Tucson in 1862 and then established a large cattle operation just south of La Paz along the eastern bank of the Colorado River.

When Rood drowned in the Colorado's flooding waters eight years later, however, a number of people believed he'd left considerable quantities of nuggets and coins buried in cans around his ranch. Some of those people also believed that the drowning was not accidental, as had been reported, but that Rood had been knocked from his small skiff by his ranch foreman, who knew where the gold was hidden.

If Rood had amassed a fortune in gold since coming west in 1849, it hadn't come quickly or easily. Not that this had bothered him too much. Rood prided himself on his ability to survive and thrive among the many hazards of the frontier West. On his foray into California, he got lost in Death Valley with several dozen other Fortyniners. In the month it took them to find their way out of the Mojave Desert, most of the emigrants became too exhausted even to carry their guns. One man buried $6,000 in gold because he could no longer bear the weight. Rood not only held onto his rifle, but in two canyons along the way he took the time to carve his name and the year, 1849, on boulders (these carvings later helped historians trace the path of the Death Valley Forty-niners). After some ill-fated attempts at mining and other business prospects in California, Rood came to Tucson around 1855. Within a few years, he owned fruit tree orchards and a ranch 40 miles south of town.

In 1859 he wrote a letter to the editor of the Weekly Arizonian: “Some persons insist that it never rains in this country, and that this is all a desert: but that I can assure you is false, for I have over two hundred head of cattle in the middle of one of those wonderful places that people die for want of water and food, and my cattle are fat and doing as well as in any other part of the country.” Rood also became briefly famous for skirmishing with a band of Apaches that began chasing him while he was riding near his ranch. The story has since been recounted in print numerous times. This version, written by a cavalry officer, appeared in The Tucson Citizen: “Just as the pursuing Indians were upon him, he flung himself into a willow thicket and there made his fight. A circle was formed around him by the yelling devils, who numbered at least thirty; but he was too cool a man to be intimidated by their infernal demonstrations. For three hours he kept them at bay with his revolver, although they poured into the thicket an almost continuous volley of rifle shots and arrows. A ball struck him in the left arm, near the elbow, and nearly