Legends of the Lost

legends of the lost Nummel May Have Lied about the Location of His Lost Gold Ledge

"Just follow the burro trails. If a burro can get there, so can you." Easy enough for Smokey Knowlton to say. This desertwise man has spent nearly a decade on the Colorado River and among the Trigo Mountains north of Yuma. I take his advice and skitter down a rocky hillside into a ravine, over a ridge, and down another set of hills, gingerly sidestepping the most obvious evidence the ubiquitous burros leave behind. I am headed for the shore, where Smokey will swing by in his boat and pick me up. On a lovely December Sunday, Smokey had willingly agreed to transport my husband and me from Martinez Lake in the Explorer, one of the jetboats he runs as part of Yuma River Tours. As he artfully dodged sandbars in the riverbed, we gazed overhead in wonder at great blue herons, white egrets, and ospreys, a few of the many birds that find a home in the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge. Smokey told of regularly seeing bobcats and bighorn sheep. He routinely searches beaches for mountain lion tracks. And while we talked above the roar of the boat's engines, a startled coyote dogpaddled furiously across our bow. Our mission was to look over the country that once was home to John Nummel, a crusty prospector and miner who'd walked every vale of this vast convoluted terrain. Nummel came to the United States from Germany sometime near the end of the last century. Lured by the mineral wealth of the West, he soon took a job at the Red Cloud Mine deep in the Trigo Mountains. The Red Cloud was named for its exceptional specimens of wulfenite, a lustrous orangish crystal coveted by collectors. (See Arizona Highways, Sept. '95.) In 1937 or 1938, a man named Ed Over found a chunk of the stuff so outstanding it earned a place in the Smithsonian Institution. But it wasn't wulfenite that John Nummel was mining. It was silver. In the first decade of operation, from 1880 to 1890, the Red Cloud produced some 5% tons of silver and another 552 tons of lead. The Red Cloud was one of several mines in the Arizona Silver District, which included the famed Clip Mine and the Black Rock. The Red Cloud's fortunes shifted with the fortunes of silver, resuming operations under various owners when prices were good, closing when prices dropped. John Nummel's own fortunes depended on his relationships with various mine foremen. One searing summer day, miffed about something, John walked off the job at the Red Cloud. It wasn't unusual for him to head out across the desert on foot with a single canteen of water. This time he aimed for the La Fortuna, a gold mine in the Gila Mountains some 40 miles to the south, hoping to land another job. He followed a dim track that more or less paralleled the river on the Arizona side, veering off as the spirit moved him to check a promising ledge. On that hot day, John made what author Harold Weight said was the "biggest strike of his life a yellow quartz ledge that glittered with free gold." Friends remembered how John told the story: Reclining in the shade of a paloverde tree, he nonchalantly chipped at a ledge of rock. Eureka! What came out was pure sparkling gold. Lacking tools and supplies, John decided to proceed on his journey to the La Fortuna. He pocketed a chunk of the ore, intending to return and open that vein of riches. In need of water, John filled his canteen at a nearby water hole.

coyote dogpaddled furiously across our bow. Our mission was to look over the country that once was home to John Nummel, a crusty prospector and miner who'd walked every vale of this vast convoluted terrain. Nummel came to the United States from Germany sometime near the end of the last century. Lured by the mineral wealth of the West, he soon took a job at the Red Cloud Mine deep in the Trigo Mountains. The Red Cloud was named for its exceptional specimens of wulfenite, a lustrous orangish crystal coveted by collectors. (See Arizona Highways, Sept. '95.) In 1937 or 1938, a man named Ed Over found a chunk of the stuff so outstanding it earned a place in the Smithsonian Institution. But it wasn't wulfenite that John Nummel was mining. It was silver. In the first decade of operation, from 1880 to 1890, the Red Cloud produced some 5% tons of silver and another 552 tons of lead. The Red Cloud was one of several mines in the Arizona Silver District, which included the famed Clip Mine and the Black Rock. The Red Cloud's fortunes shifted with the fortunes of silver, resuming operations under various owners when prices were good, closing when prices dropped. John Nummel's own fortunes depended on his relationships with various mine foremen. One searing summer day, miffed about something, John walked off the job at the Red Cloud. It wasn't unusual for him to head out across the desert on foot with a single canteen of water. This time he aimed for the La Fortuna, a gold mine in the Gila Mountains some 40 miles to the south, hoping to land another But John didn't return to his gold find. Instead he began working at La Fortuna, making some money, heading back to Yuma by wagon road and river, and once again ending up back at the Red Cloud. Naturally along the way he worked up a terrible thirst, so he tarried at a local saloon and ended up drinking away most of his paycheck. He lasted a little while at the Red Cloud but itched to get back to that enticing ledge. Heading back along what he thought was the same route, John crossed Yuma Wash. To his dismay, little of the rumpled landscape looked familiar. Where was he? What had happened? Was he losing his mind? For John, so accustomed to tromping these hills with nothing but shoe leather and dead reckoning, it must have been an immensely frustratingdisconcerting feeling. He was simply unable to relocate that mother lode that was going to make him rich beyond his dreams and free of all the mine bosses in the world. He tried again and again to find his lost ledge but in vain. Even in 1947, a year before he died, John was down at Laguna Dam, waiting for pack burros to arrive so he could make yet another attempt to win his fortune. But that is not the end of the story by a long shot. John Nummel lost not one potential bonanza but two. Nearly 30 years after he'd found the gold, John was walking back to his little riverside cabin above Norton's Landing when he reportedly struck a silver ledge. This time he actually had the rock assayed; it was said to be high-grade ore. But once again, John just couldn't seem to relocate the spot, no matter how many times he retraced his steps. There's been a lot of interest in John Nummel's lost loot over the years. Erle Stanley Gardner set out to find the gold ledge by helicopter. He even included a chapter about it in his book Hunting Lost Mines by Helicopter. Gardner believed John's gold should be easy to rediscover because it was in accessible, easily explored terrain. From a helicopter maybe, but from the ground the land hasn't changed much since old John wandered around in it. It's still a jumble of rocky hills, deadend washes, and worn out trails. All someone had to do, Gardner thought, was find that natural tank where John refilled his canteen, somewhere in the labyrinth of Yuma Wash. After the helicopter reconnaissance, Gardner returned on the ground with an expert guide and all-terrain vehicles called Grasshoppers. But after a thorough exploration, he was never certain of having found the right water tank or John's lost ledge. Gardner came away convinced that John, possibly wary of a claim jumper, didn't tell the whole truth about the location of his ledge. His hunch was that it wasn't in Yuma Wash at all, but in one nearby that he named "Nummel Canyon."

Maybe so. The day I went upriver with Smokey Knowlton, our biggest goal was finding the site of John's cabin. Smokey had an old photo of it taken in the '20s or '30s with wiry John standing out front, walking staff in hand. Above Norton's Landing, we pulled into a big eddy, tied up the boat, and went ashore. Amid a fierce tangle of tamarisk and mesquite, we stumbled upon plenty of old boards and the rusted body of a Model T truck. Holding up the photo, we tried to match the exact skyline, the foreground rock, and any other definitive landmarks. Nothing fit. We continued along the trace of the old road to the Red Cloud, but finally gave up and headed back to the boat.

That was when Smokey told me to follow the burro trails. At one point, I have an uncanny sense that the skyline is right. Standing atop a big rock with photo in hand, Smokey gleefully verifies that it is indeed John Nummel's cabin site, ending a search that had lasted eight years. A giant willow grows at water's edge. It would have shaded the cabin and provided an idyllic spot for an old prospector who'd walked this land looking for his lost ledge until he died.