Peter Wrote:
The question posed by Wiz and Thirsty about the mine not being found for the past 117 years or so is a valid
one. Was the last person to take ore from the mine area Joe Deering in 1885? John Reed in 1888? (if you put
any credence in those tales) I do not know, of course. It does amaze that the LDM vanished off of the face of
the earth since that time. There are stories about folks visiting the mine area later on. Senor Ballesteros ( I
think it was he but might have been a Peralta..sorry cant find it in my papers) supposedly visited the mine site
in 1895 and said the area was so broken up that he hardly recognized it (as a result of the '87 quake? 91
flood?). Bark and Ely also subscribed to the "earth changes" theory, as do several other searchers. Perhaps
they are right...
The story on Senor Jose Ballesteros de Madrid is told in John Mitchell's book, Lost Mines of the Great Southwest (1933), in which he tells of Jose joining Don Miguel Peralta in working the LDM in 1864. He was with Miguel when their southern mine was attacked by the Apaches and he and Miguel escaped as they were working the arrastras at Morman Flat.
The reference I think you are trying to find is in Walter Gassler's 1983 phamplet, The Lost Peralta - Dutchman Mine, on Page 29:
"...Ruth was in contact with a Manuel Peralta living in St. Louis, who claimed he visited the mine in 1891, that would have been after the flood which was the cause of the death of Jacob Waltz and claimed the place was terribly broken up and almost impassible?"
This may have been further references in some other sources associated with Erwin Ruth as he looked into the LDM after the death of his father, Adolph Ruth, and talked to many of the later Dutch Hunters.
Roger
Why hasn't the LDM been found?
The question for me is why the LDM was not found before the First World War. Trails were fresh (more of less) and there were signs of the Mexican camps, fire beds, etc. Returning to an earlier thought, for me an even more curious question is why the mine was not discovered before 1885 when it was being worked and the mountains would have had probably hundreds, if not thousands, from the Silver King and Pinal in those mountains. Deering found the mine in this time period by simply following a trail, so did the two soldiers and maybe William Edwards. After 1895 with Bicknell’s articles there were lots of people in the mountains looking specifically for Waltz’s mine. But, it just seems to have vanished. Maybe this is a good argument for the earth-changed theory, I don’t know. But, it is curious.
Why It Wasn't Found in the 1880's
There are probably 3 main reasons I know of as to why the LDM was not found in the pre -1885 and late 1800's by the prospectors of that time:
1. The Apaches were not permanently moved out of the Superstition Mountains area until 1884. Prior to that time, a prospector was taking a death risk to hunt in those mountains and very few did.
2. The big earthquake of the late 1800's undoubtedly disturbed the area significantly and some of the more visible trails may not have survived. In addition, the trail to the LDM mine was visible enough for Deering to find/follow it in 1881, but the quake plus the 10 years until Waltz died and the big hunt began would have let nature do its damage to the trail.
3. Most of the early prospectors in the early LDM hunt shortly after Waltz died in 1891 explored the region south of an east-west line through Marsh Valley and that area is still the primary focus of many Dutch Hunters today. The Weavers Needle clue kept most searchers in this area.
May be right or wrong, but some thoughts.
Roger
1. The Apaches were not permanently moved out of the Superstition Mountains area until 1884. Prior to that time, a prospector was taking a death risk to hunt in those mountains and very few did.
2. The big earthquake of the late 1800's undoubtedly disturbed the area significantly and some of the more visible trails may not have survived. In addition, the trail to the LDM mine was visible enough for Deering to find/follow it in 1881, but the quake plus the 10 years until Waltz died and the big hunt began would have let nature do its damage to the trail.
3. Most of the early prospectors in the early LDM hunt shortly after Waltz died in 1891 explored the region south of an east-west line through Marsh Valley and that area is still the primary focus of many Dutch Hunters today. The Weavers Needle clue kept most searchers in this area.
May be right or wrong, but some thoughts.
Roger
Roger,
Good points, but I wonder about some things, like the Apache threat keeping people out of the mountains back in the late 1870s/early 1880s. I don’t play down the Indian threat, but when I read newspapers from that time period there are stories of prospectors spending weeks deep in Apache country. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but they did it. So I wonder about prospectors and such staying out of the mountains simply because they were afraid of the Apache. After all the two soldiers thought nothing of traveling from McDowell to Pinal through those mountains alone. And Deering was wandering in their alone. Now, according to the Holmes Manuscript Waltz was traveling through that country when he was attacked by Apache, but he escaped and having found the mine seems to have survived for years spending considerable time in the Superstitions alone. I cannot say, I was not there; but it does seem that the Apache threat may not have been as great as we think it was in this time period. Not that they weren’t there, just that the actual threat was one many a pioneer prospector/explorer thought he could deal with??
I have never been a great fan of the earthquake being as damaging as many think. According to the newspapers whole mountainsides slid down. But, I have found no other records to support the newspaper accounts, and back then (well, and now too) the newspapers printed some real whoppers greatly exaggerating things. I have seen one old newspaper article about a giant rattlesnake seen in the Superstitions – it supposedly crawled down one side of a canyon in front of some riders and started up the other side completely blocking the trail as its tail was way up the mountain on one side while its head was way up the mountain on the other side of the trail. So maybe the quake reports in the papers are reliable, but I wonder.
As to where the early Dutch Hunters went I don’t really know. Julia and Rhinehart surely went just like you said to the Weaver’s Needle area. But, Bark and Ely were all over the mountains from Bluff Springs/Needle country to Charlebois Mountain. We know that early on Godfried Petrasch zeroed in on Tortilla and I think it was Rhinehart or was it Herman who began to focus on Peter’s Canyon and Mesa. With these heavy weights looking where they did I think at least some of the Dutch Hunters of that day would have followed in their footsteps.
Just some thoughts.
Good points, but I wonder about some things, like the Apache threat keeping people out of the mountains back in the late 1870s/early 1880s. I don’t play down the Indian threat, but when I read newspapers from that time period there are stories of prospectors spending weeks deep in Apache country. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but they did it. So I wonder about prospectors and such staying out of the mountains simply because they were afraid of the Apache. After all the two soldiers thought nothing of traveling from McDowell to Pinal through those mountains alone. And Deering was wandering in their alone. Now, according to the Holmes Manuscript Waltz was traveling through that country when he was attacked by Apache, but he escaped and having found the mine seems to have survived for years spending considerable time in the Superstitions alone. I cannot say, I was not there; but it does seem that the Apache threat may not have been as great as we think it was in this time period. Not that they weren’t there, just that the actual threat was one many a pioneer prospector/explorer thought he could deal with??
I have never been a great fan of the earthquake being as damaging as many think. According to the newspapers whole mountainsides slid down. But, I have found no other records to support the newspaper accounts, and back then (well, and now too) the newspapers printed some real whoppers greatly exaggerating things. I have seen one old newspaper article about a giant rattlesnake seen in the Superstitions – it supposedly crawled down one side of a canyon in front of some riders and started up the other side completely blocking the trail as its tail was way up the mountain on one side while its head was way up the mountain on the other side of the trail. So maybe the quake reports in the papers are reliable, but I wonder.
As to where the early Dutch Hunters went I don’t really know. Julia and Rhinehart surely went just like you said to the Weaver’s Needle area. But, Bark and Ely were all over the mountains from Bluff Springs/Needle country to Charlebois Mountain. We know that early on Godfried Petrasch zeroed in on Tortilla and I think it was Rhinehart or was it Herman who began to focus on Peter’s Canyon and Mesa. With these heavy weights looking where they did I think at least some of the Dutch Hunters of that day would have followed in their footsteps.
Just some thoughts.