LEGENDS OF THE LOST

legends of the lost Gold Fever Got You? Look for the Treasure of the Sunlit Cave

It's a treasure concealed by the wiles of nature. It can be seen only in the bluffs along the Colorado River during a few precious moments each day, then it's gone. Come too soon and the cave entrance is invisible. Too late and it has vanished again, back into nature's bosom. Is it the legend of the Sunlit Cave, as some call it? Or is it the tale of the Gila Gold Coins, based on the belief that the treasure actually lies along the banks of the nearby Gila River? The name depends on the teller. So do the details. They've changed over the decades, one version sliding into another and that blending seamlessly with a third. But particulars aside, the legend is still told in the wilds north of Yuma. The story began July 17, 1781, when Indians living along the Colorado River revolted against newly arFranciscan friars and the Spanish troops sent to guard them. Four friars and many soldiers were killed. The two mission pueblos they'd built La Purisima Concepcion, on what is now Fort Yuma Hill, and San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuner, eight miles south were sacked, and church property tossed into the river. As the story goes, the friars' belongings included a cache of items made of gold: ingots, coins, and crucifixes and other holy images. Yuma Chief Palma knew how precious the gold was to the Spaniards, and he ordered it loaded onto boats and deposited in a cave on the opposite side of the river. To further conceal it, he commanded the construction of a false wall at the rear of the chasm. When survivors of the attack, including an Indian interpreter for the Spanish who overheard Palma's instructions, reached Los Angeles, immediate efforts began to retrieve the hidden wealth. The interpreter was instructed to lead Spanish troops back to the site. But fearing retribution by members of his own tribe, he fled the expedition, guaranteeing its failure. But the legend didn't die. According to a 25-year-old magazine article, the cave was rediscovered in the fall of 1888 by a 60-year-old prospector named Homer Alexander. He used an ax to hammer through the two-foot-thick false wall into the treasure cave. Rotting animal skins covered the ground. When he lifted them Alexander saw gold nuggets, some as large as a man's thumb. But the size of the cache, and its weight, proved to be Alexander's undoing. He needed help to get it out, and he decided the only man he could trust was his friend Dave Devine of Kingman. He traveled there and got Devine's assurance that he would join an expedition back to the cave at the earliest opportunity. But Alexander first needed to have his discovery assessed. Alexander boxed the gold and took a train to Riverside, California, telling Devine he would be gone no longer than six weeks. But six weeks came and went and no Alexander. Devine, who suspected foul play, learned from the Riverside assayer that the pieces Alexander shipped had been valued at $129,000. But Devine was unable to find the cave, and the hunt continues. As recently as 10 years ago, retired construction worker Bryant Morgan regularly sailed the Colorado in a skiff with the sun at his back, training his binoculars on the bluffs on the Colorado's east side. Morgan even had the cave's location pinpointed, and it was roughly the same as Alexander's: about 20 miles north of Yuma near Martinez Lake at the southern end of the Chocolate and Trigo mountains. But nothing Morgan tried could overcome nature's deception. In a telephone interview, he described seeing what appeared to be a hole in the rocks, only to realize a moment later that it was actually a shadow on an outcropping. "From the amount of time I spent looking up and down that river, I can tell you the sun plays an important part in this legend," says Morgan, of Oakley, California. "It's probably too late for me now, anyway. I kind of believe someone has found it, myself." Many times during his days on the river, Morgan encountered prospectors pursuing the same dream. One man ran a store 12 miles upriver from Martinez Lake. He used its proceeds to fund his searches. When Morgan bought supplies, the two would talk. But never about the legend. Another time Morgan encountered a man fishing at the riverbank. "Catch anything?" Morgan asked. "Ah, no," the man replied. "I'm really looking for the Sunlit Cave." He was holding a line in the water while eyeing the sun moving against the bluffs. "If you're like me, and you've got treasure hunter blood in you, that kind of thing can work you up pretty good," says Morgan, now 75 and unable to search further. "But I like armchair looking now. It don't get you snake-bit, and you don't use as much gasoline."

He laughed a big treasure-hunter's laugh. But it was tinged with regret at the failure of his searches.

The legend's final act, at least as it's told around Yuma, happened sometime in the 1940s. It goes like this: A San Diego couple visits Yuma and decides to spend their final day plying the hills along the river. Whether it's the Colorado or the Gila is unclear.

At sunset, as they begin walking back to their car, the woman decides to detour over the rocks, while the husband, too weary to follow, takes the straight-ahead approach. They agree to meet at the car.

When the wife reaches her husband's side, she's breathless with news of her discovery: a narrow space between two rocks, and inside, a room filled with canvas sacks.

The sacks disintegrate in their hands and out pours gold: ingots, coins, chalices, and crosses. The two know the story from 1781, and believe they have found the treasure.

But the weight of the pieces is so great they can remove only a fraction. They make the same mistake Alexander made, and decide to return later with a truck to haul it away.

Back in San Diego, an assayer's eyes pop from his skull when he inspects the gold items. Where in the name of Inca did you find this? They grin like bobcats over a foal.

But subsequent trips to the river yield nothing. Their detailed pencil sketches are rendered worthless by the possessiveness of nature.

The husband dies. The wife mounts a few expeditions on her own, but age and the unreliability of her hired help conspire against her.

Still the passing years do nothing to diminish her fever. Instead it escalates and infects her so deeply, she is unable to cope.

A San Diego asylum has her now, and there she sits, day after day, turning in her aged hands the few gold coins she fetched from the cave, her mind gone from the thought of a treasure lost. But like the gold itself, no such woman can be found.

in her aged hands the few gold coins she fetched from the cave, her mind gone from the thought of a treasure lost. But like the gold itself, no such woman can be found.

It's up to us now to believe the legend or not. If you do, pick a river, the Colorado or the Gila. Pick a story, Alexander's, Morgan's, or that of the San Diego couple.

Load your boat with supplies and bring a strong pair of binoculars in the hope that nature will finally remove the veil that has kept the Sunlit Cave hidden for more than two centuries.