The Claim
There’s a very rich gold mine lost within the superstition mountains of Arizona
The tale of gold always lures a few treasure hunters no matter if its a shipwreck or buried pirate treasure story, but this one has hundreds of people looking for the mines each year, and has caused numerous deaths.
As for the mine its originally believed to have been started by the Apache tribe after they learned how valuable gold was to the settlers, and was mined by no one but them.
The tale of the mines existence begins with various stories which all seem to have different versions of them, depending on who you ask, so I’ll just go over the most common ones.
The first story starts with a man named Dr. Thorne who worked in the area during the 1850’s. One day a wounded Apache came to him for help and he treated him even though the relationship between the 2 groups was quite hostile. The Apache was so thankful he rewarded the Doctor by taking him blindfolded to the site of the mine were he was allowed to take as much gold ore as he could carry before being taken back blindfolded again.
The Doctor showed the gold ore to various people, but was either unable to locate the mine from his time there, or he was unwilling to do so as he never told anyone its where abouts.
The next story involves 2 German explorers, Jacob Waltz and Jacob Weiser who are said to have found the mine but were attacked by Apaches who killed Weiser and badly wounded Waltz. On his deathbed he is said to have told the attending Doctor and a woman named Julia Thomas the location of the mine and also drew a basic map. Many attempts to locate the mine using the map have failed as its to basic and no one can seen to identify which one of the mountains is shown in it.
The last story is about about several soldiers who came across the mine and took some of the ore to show people, however shortly after showing their Superior they all disappeared, never to be seen again and believed to have been killed.
So there’s a Gold mine just sitting in the Superstition mountains? Could that be true?
Well there’s a very good chance of it as gold is much more common than people think it is. It appears in every single country in the world and is only so expensive due to how hard it is to mine and how low the gold to ore ratio normally is.
America has some huge gold mines and rocky desert type areas have been the site of many gold ore discoveries, but what about the Dutchman mine?
The Apaches were known to have mined gold and obviously would be reluctant to share its location with the people they were trading it with, so a secret Apache mine is completely possible. There would also be no signs of the usual mining works such as pulley systems and cart tracks as they didn’t generally do things in this manner, instead having a much simpler dig a hole with pickaxes method.
The fact that no one has found it yet does raise suspicion to its existence but the stories are believed enough to make thousands of people over the years come here to try and find it, with some even dying in the process.
In 2010, 3 hikers got lost in the mountain range while trying to find the mine and were not found until the following year where it was presumed that they died in the heat.
The previous year saw another prospector dying on one of the mountains after getting stuck in a small canyon he seemed to have climbed into. He wasn’t found until 3 years later by a search and rescue team that were looking for the body.
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