Legends of the Lost

Site of the Mina de Amole Treasure Remains a Mystery

Some treasures are more lost than others, and the Mina de Amole appeared to be really lost. So lost, in fact, that the only manuscript detailing the treasure's history and whereabouts was missing a crucial page, and no other copies of the manuscript were to be found.

At first I was inclined to abandon the search (for the story, that is), but something in the manuscript had caught my attention. I knew nothing of the author, who may have passed away, or his sources, but the narrative was so detailed in terms of dates, names, and its descriptions of places that it carried a certain authoritative weight. I wanted to know more.

I began wading through the archives at the Arizona Historical Society, and after several hours of false leads, I suddenly encountered some tantalizing facts not the least of which was that my own grandfather had taken part in the search for this very treasure. This surprised me, because my grandfather had been an engineer not a prospector, and he was a skeptic by nature.

The other interesting feature of this tale was that the treasure, if it exists, lay buried about two miles due north of my grandfather's old house which now is my house.

The story of the Mina de Amole began in the late 18th century, when Tucson was a Spanish presidio. In 1788 two Catalans arrived in Tucson from California: Don Ramon de Romeu and Capt. Nicolas Soler, who was the newly appointed commandant of the presidio. Soler was an experienced miner, and when he heard that gold and silver veins had been Found in the Tucson Mountains, he decided to develop them.

The mine was christened El Amole after the soap-root yucca that grew in the area. A shaft was sunk on the southeast flank of Amole Peak (now called Wasson Peak), and a reduction camp was constructed on the west bank of the Santa Cruz River at a ford called Vado de los Sauces.

The mine was generously endowed with ore, but the presence of Apaches made working it a dangerous business. A year after the operation began, Soler and several soldiers were ambushed and killed while on their way to work. Having dispatched the miners, the Apaches went about burning and looting the reduction camp.

Outraged by his countryman's death, Don Ramon rebuilt the camp and swore that no Apaches would shut down the mine. He hired the toughest men he could find to guard the camp, and for many years, the story goes, the Amole was worked in safety.

Coinage was scarce in Tucson at the time, so Don Ramon also went into the minting business. He had dies engraved and turned out copper and silver coins of high quality. It's uncertain what the government thought of all this, but by 1837 counterfeiting was a crime punishable by death.

Don Ramon was a Spanish loyalist, and he found himself in an awkward spot following Mexico's War of Independence. First he was forced to pay a fine for refusing to swear allegiance to the new government and then he was accused of being an enemy alien and therefore subject to expulsion under a law Mexico passed in 1827. Don Ramon now hated the Mexicans as well as the Indians, and he decided that neither of them would ever reap a profit from the Spanish mine. Before departing on his long trip back to Spain, Don Ramon blasted the El Amole shut, destroyed the smelter, and buried what gold and silver he could not carry with him on his journey.

This story was passed on by a private named Augustin Tome, who served under Don Ramon. Tome related the tale to his grandnephew and namesake, who was born in Tucson in 1857. Years later, when the nephew himself was an old man, he told the story to Donald Page the author of the incomplete manuscript.

A month later, Tome filled Page in on the story. In his notes, Page wrote: "There is the inevitable story of buried treasure connected with the site, which runs somewhat as follows: one is to dig (at a point not specified) and at a little depth a thick block of wood will be found. Under this will be found the dies used in minting the coinage and a little deeper under this will be found another thick block of wood. Under this will be found one or more perons [large copper pots or caldrons] filled with pasta [amalgam] and under this again another pot or so filled with minted silver or gold.

"Tome also tells me that as a boy he remembers the old men talking about having been able to see through a spyglass the workmen about the mouth of the mine, which seems to have been close to a great rock or crag, and the point from which their observations were taken having been the W. or main gate of the old walled town [about where Alameda Street now intersects Main Street].

"I asked Dean Butler if he knew anything about this old mine, and he tells me that he has heard of it but has no idea where it was located. Eldred Wilson knows nothing about it, nor does the president of the Chamber of Mines."

During the same month he interviewed Tome, Page searched for the smelter remains several times. My grandfather, Glenton Sykes, accompanied him on two of these trips, according to Page's notes. I can only guess that Page enlisted my grandfather's help because he worked for the city and was familiar with its geography (Page lived in California).

Sykes and Page found some crumbling adobe ruins and a good deal of broken pottery. They also found a deep hole that another searcher had excavated. When Page returned to this site with Tome, however, Tome said it was the wrong place.

Page's notes on the mine end on June 8, 1928, when he and Tome returned to the vicinity of the area: "Tome and I drove out again, and he tells me that about five years ago a girl, the daughter of a family that lived in a jacal just north of the road, dug a hole in the ground and unearthed one side of a large copper peron that was covered with a plate or similar covering. Prying up the lid a little ways, she found the bowl to be filled with money, but when her mother saw this she made her cover it up again, saying that it must be something Don Felipe, the owner of the land, had hidden.

"Some time later, they told this to Don Felipe, who sent Tome out to look into the matter, but in the meantime the houses had been moved, and he was unable to find the spot, although he believes that it was close to an old acequia that runs east alongside the road. Tome says that this discovery seems to check with the old tale."

By the time I made it to the vicinity of the old smelter - nearly 70 years after my grandfather had been there nothing was to be found except the decomposed granite that had been spread about for landscaping the Santa Cruz River Park. The river, which once provided water for the reduction process, was filled only with noise from the nearby freeway.

I walked eastward along the paved pathway, past newly planted paloverdes and much older mesquites. At the spot where the river curves abruptly south-the point of the old smelter site, according to some - I came upon a chain link fence enclosing a large yard and a slightly run-down house. I put my hands on the fence and peered in. Two Dobermans and a big rottweiler came at me in a snarling charge. I backed off fast, wondering what they were guarding.