Treasure Tales along the Texas-Oklahoma Border

North of Pottsboro, Texas Jesse James and his gang buried $40,000 that they appropriated from the State Fair in Texas. Knowing they were being chased by Texas Rangers they headed north into Oklahoma, crossing the Red River near present day Kingston, OK. After that they doubled back across the river south, back into Texas where they found a bend in the river near Twin Hills. At this bend, between a pine tree and a large flat rock, they buried the money and this cache was never recovered, as far as we know.

Based on what I know about Jesse James treasure sites there are sure to be carvings or markers of some kind in the area where this treasure was left. One of the biggest problems you will face in finding this cache is that it may be covered over by Lake Texoma now. The shores of the lake come awful close to this location but they may or may not cover over the actual location of the cache.

In Lamar County, Texas there is the story of a Mexican mule train consisting of eleven burros loaded with gold that was attacked by Indians. Just how many mules do you have to have to have a “mule train” anyway? The unlucky members of this Mexican caravan were traveling on the old Spanish Santa Fe-Natchitoches Trail that ran along the Red River on the Texas side. There were only three survivors of the attack and they fled back to Louisiana and never tried to recover the gold.

There are two competing stories about what happened to the gold. One says that the gold was hastily buried along the Red River about 22 miles northwest of Paris, Texas and the other says the gold was dumped into an off-shoot of the Red River which in it’s present state would be Palmer Lake.

There is the story of an old Mexican army officer who had come to the area and camped for a while. It was said the army officer had a map he had gotten from one of the survivors and was looking for the gold. Apparently, he left emptied handed.

To add fuel to the fire, while working in his field a farmer plowed up skeletons, gun barrels and other relics of the massacre in 1835. These were found on a farm once known as the Rutherford Farm, located approximately twenty-two miles from Paris, TX.

In 1900 even more relics and human bones were found on a farm near Palmer Lake. This farm was known as the Crain Farm and was located northwest of Forest Chapel.

If you are planning on looking for this one you will want to do some more research to narrow down the location. You might also want to learn how to scuba dive just in case the gold is in the lake!

In 2005 there was an amateur documentary about a couple of Texas locals that took a backhoe to the then dried up Palmer Lake looking for this treasure. I haven’t seen the documentary and don’t know how this dig turned out. If you are interested in this treasure you might want to find out more about the documentary. It was titled “Pay Dirt: The Lost Treasure Of Palmer Lake”.