LEGENDS OF THE LOST

legends of the lost Rotting Remains of an Ox Cart May Hold Key to the Treasure of Carreta Canyon

Just call the two of us optimists. We were maneuvering our four-wheel-drive truck up a deeply rutted road in a remote, rugged, vegetationchoked canyon in extreme southern Arizona - hoping to stumble across the rotting remains of a 246-year-old ox cart.

"Spot any sign of that cart, and we just might be able to afford early retirement," I reminded my wife, Donna, as we scanned the mesquite-cloaked landscape.

Our minds were locked like lasers on the idea of finding the long-lost cart because it's considered the key to the reputed treasure of Carreta Canyon.

Carreta is the Spanish word for a two-wheeled cart that was in common use during the mid1700s at Spanish missions and settlements across what is now southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Among those missions was Tumacacori, which has been preserved as a national historical park 45 miles south of Tucson. Among the settlements was the still-thriving community of Arivaca, 55 miles southwest of Tucson. And it was here in the western foothills of the Tumacacori Mountains between the historic mission and the town of Arivaca that Donna and I were cart-hunting. That's because legend with at least some basis in historical fact has it that one of the rough-hewn carretas might have been used to haul a cargo of gold, silver, and other treasures to a hiding place somewhere in this area way back in the year 1751. Remains of the cart, supposedly abandoned at the site, could conceivably lead us to the treasure trove and perhaps put us in position to write letters of resignation from the workday world. We'd done some homework before setting out on what we hoped wouldn't be a wild loot chase.

Several books including Dig Here! by Thomas Penfield and Lost Mines and Buried Treasures Along the Old Frontier by John D. Mitchell offered somewhat varying accounts of the basis for the Carreta Canyon treasure tale. The accounts seemed to agree, however, that it was an uprising by Pima Indians that prompted padres from Tumacacori to remove gold, silver, and ornaments from the mission lest these valuables be captured by marauding Indians.

Historical texts confirmed that a Pima uprising brought havoc and violence to the region in the fall of 1751. And one of the texts, Mission of Sorrows by John L. Kessell, made note of efforts by churchmen to save precious artifacts from the Pimas. Jesuits, however, maintain no such treasure existed.

According to one version of the story, the Tumacacori padres loaded bars of gold and silver from mission mines, along with other church valuables, onto a carreta and headed west through the mountains in the direction of Arivaca.

In a remote canyon on the second day of their journey, they chanced upon another party fleeing the uprising, this one a pack train carrying treasures from mission mines in Mexico.

No sooner had the two groups exchanged tales of their plights than a runner informed them of the rapid approach of a hostile band of Pimas. The padres hastily agreed on a plan to hide their combined treasures in a nearby mine shaft. Afdoned the cart and fled for their lives.

Here the story jumps to more than a century later.

Sometime in the early 1880s, Mexican cowboys searching for stray cattle established a camp near the mouth of Jalisco Canyon in the foothills east of Arivaca.

One of the cowboys reportedly rode south into the canyon and came upon the remains of an old carreta in a small side canyon. Nearby, on what appeared to be an old mine dump, he found rocks laced with traces of silver ore.

That night around the campfire, the cowboy told his companions about his find. But after enduring their teasing and ridicule about his "lost mine," he let the matter drop.

A few years later, soldiers passing through the area reported seeing an old carreta, and the site was known informally for some years as Carreta Canyon.

More than a century after those cart sightings, Donna and I purchased detailed maps of the area published by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Forest Service. On none of the maps could we find either a Carreta Canyon or a Cart Canyon.

But voilathere was, indeed, a Jalisco Canyon depicted clearly on both the Geological Survey and Coronado National Forest maps.

And it was in that canyon, Jalisco, the one from which the cowboy made his way to an old cart more than 100 years earlier, that Donna and I now prowled in our long-shot quest for a bonanza.

We got there by starting at the junction of Interstates 10 and 19 in Tucson and driving 32.5 miles south on Interstate 19 to the Arivaca Road exit. From the exit, we continued 23 miles southwest on Arivaca Road to the town of Arivaca. After an early lunch at La Gitana Saloon and Cafe in the center of town, we drove back out Arivaca Road 1.9 miles to the turnoff for Universal Ranch Road. We took the turnoff and headed east and then south on a series of increasingly rough dirt roads into what we imagined might be get-rich-quick country.

Like most long-ago and modern-day travelers in this beautiful but rugged terrain, we navigated the maze of roads toward Jalisco Canyon more by instinct than by map.

For those following in our tracks, we'd recommend fourwheel-drive capability and two Geological Survey maps: the Arivaca quadrangle and the Murphy Peak quadrangle. Jalisco Canyon is shown on the Murphy Peak map.

After some wrong turns and reversed courses, we reached the road into Jalisco Canyon, marked on the Coronado National Forest map as Road 4143. About here a time-tested bit of backcountry wisdom came into play. Decades of driving Arizona's back roads and hiking the state's wilderness trails had taught us that the journey can be every bit as rewarding as the destination - perhaps more so.

Granted, our appointed mission was to discover the remains of a two-and-a-half-centuries-old ox cart and any riches it might reveal. But happily enough, we soon noticed that this errand had placed us in one of the most winsome little corners of Arizona.

After savoring our leisurely repast in Arivaca, we had driven slowly, appreciatively, though idyllic, rolling ranch country on our way toward Jalisco Canyon.

Once in the canyon itself, we forgot about our rush to riches when we noticed an enormous great horned owl perched in a canyon-bottom cottonwood. The big bird eyed us warily, never asking "who,"

never showing us where.

Near the head of the canyon, having caught not the slightest glimpse of a carreta from the road, we parked our truck in dense mesquite shade and Set off on foot in search of dilapidated carts and invaluable views.

We found plenty of the latter. Ascending a cartless side canyon, we reached an open ridge affording long looks toward the mile-high ramparts of the Tumacacori Mountains to the east and wooded Bartolo Mountain to the south.

Closer up now, we saw remarkable rocks, no less wondrous for their lack of lustrous ore.

And in the azure sky, hawks soared high, scanning the thickets for supper. pper. With their exceptional eyes, could they see what we sought?