The site of the treasure is somewhere in western Lamar County, Texas, bags of gold coins thrown into a shallow lake, as reported by the lone survivor of a burro train attacked by Indians.
The story
has everything needed in a Texas treasure tale – Indians, Mexican soldiers,
burros and a map drawn on a piece of leather.
Lots of
people have looked for the gold, but none have succeeded, as far as people
know.
I wrote a
couple of stories on the treasure while working at the newspaper in Paris,
Texas. The first story was an encapsulation of several parts of the tale,
including use of a steam digger in the early part of the 20th century. Use of a
state-of-the-art steam-powered digger was supposed to prove that technology won’t
always prevail over something buried.
Within a
couple of days after the story ran, a soybean farmer called the newspaper. He
said he farmed the fields where the treasure is buried. A photographer and I
went out a few days after the call and went with the farmer to the fields.
There were soybean plants as far as I could see, and due north, about a mile, a
line of trees marking the Red River.
The farmer,
the photographer and I stood in the field, the farmer recounting the story of a
Mexican army burro train traveling through the area before the Texas
Revolution. Indians attacked the soldiers. The commander ordered soldiers to
throw all the bags of gold into a shallow lake, lest the Indians seize the
coins. The soldiers complied. In the ensuing fight, Indians killed all the
soldiers but one. He hid and later made his escape.
The story
then shifts to the early 1900s, when a Texan in New Mexico meets an old Mexican
who has a map drawn on a piece of leather. That map led to the unsuccessful use
of the steam digger.
After saying
all that, the farmer informed the photographer and me, “I know exactly where
the gold is buried.” He pointed. “See that low place there? That used to be
part of the shallow lake. The gold is buried right there.”
I thought, Well, dang, dude! How come you don’t have a
backhoe out here, digging away? I didn’t say anything, though. Just let it
be.
Okie
Treasure Hunter wrote about the Lamar County gold 14 years ago. Details vary,
as always in a treasure story.
If you’re in Lamar County, he writes, “you might as well
keep your eyes open for the gold and silver coins left behind by a Mexican
wagon train in the 1840’s. This treasure is supposed to have been worth between
$25,000 and $75,000 when it was hidden. The wagon train was headed for St.
Louis, MO when they thought they were going to be attacked by a band of
outlaws. (At least it wasn’t the Indians this time!) Fearing an attack the
Mexicans buried the treasure on the old Spanish Road that ran along the Red
River north of Paris, TX. Then they high tailed it back to Mexico. The Mexican
War erupted soon after that and the original members of the wagon train all
died before they could retrieve the treasure.”
http://okietreasurehunter.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-tales-of-treasure-along-oklahoma.html
Details, details. Wagon train, outlaws, Spanish Road that
ran along the Red River. Not likely.
That $75,000 would be worth $2.5 million today.
If you like these sort of tales, I can heartily recommend "Coronado's Children" by J. Frank Dobie. Many of the stories have more than a grain of truth to them. Most have been retold for so many generations that the tale now has little relationship to the original story. Fun evening reading.
ReplyDeleteI have not read that Dobie book, but I will.
DeleteAround 1905, in a certain county in western AZ, the payroll of $70,000 in gold dollars was taken in a stage coach robbery. That treasure is still out there.
ReplyDeleteThere are certain clues as to its location. A mountain pass where the robbery took place, on a road between two towns, buried along the northern section of a small homestead in that area, and others.
Given there is to this day still only one road between those towns, only one mountain pass, only one homestead which was in that area at the time, it can be reasonably said there is but a small area which is likely. The problem is that country is rough going. One would have to be desperate - as desperate as thieves with a posse hot on their trail - to wander off the roadway there. The country is rough enough that there is a good chance that any treasure seeker would suffer serious injury, or worse. In fact, two of the robbers were caught (the third having died after a fall) when they sat down waiting to be discovered. They had given up, the country had beaten them.
The terrain made them give up. That's good. A lot of places, all you have to do is survive 100+ degree days, no water, rattlers, scorpions, and etc. Treasure of the Sierra Madre things.
Delete