Treasure in Bryan County, Oklahoma

Back in the 1920’s and 1930’s human bones were routinely plowed up by farmers north of Durant, Oklahoma at a place that was once known as “Nail’s Crossing”. This was an old stage stop and although there doesn’t appear to be any written history about what happened, the bones would indicate that a group of people had a very bad day! For those of you that like to run a metal detector and look for relics and the occasional coin or two this would be a good spot to try.

For those of you that like to look for things a little bigger, this area around Durant, OK would also be a good place for you. There has been some outlaw treasure recovered in the hills and stories abound of other treasure still waiting to be unearthed.

Back in the late 1920’s and early 30’s men with steam shovels were in the area digging holes looking for treasure. Nobody knows for sure exactly what they were looking for but they apparently didn’t find it, or didn’t tell anybody they found it. Maybe it was one of the two “lost” gold mines that are supposed to be in the area.

Jesse James was said to have a “private cache of loot” in or near a "special" cave located in this area. The cave was said to have a small opening that led to two large rooms that were connected to each other by a small tunnel. Back in the early 1930’s treasure hunters dynamited the cave twice trying to find hidden treasure but all they accomplished was damaging the cave. Go figure! The best thing about this is that Jesse James may not have hidden any treasure INSIDE the cave. In my opinion Jesse was a pretty smart guy, even if he was a little nuts and I would bet if he had treasure he would have hidden it outside of the cave and left some marks or clues to lead him back to it.

The Blue River in this area seems to be a good spot to find, and apparently loose gold. There are stories of several “vessels” that have sunk on the river and gold has been recovered from some of these. There was a chest of treasure that was recovered on the bank of the Blue River around 1931.

If you are up for a good hunt you could search for four kegs of gold coins that were secreted away in a “hidden cave” close to the Blue River about five miles northeast of Brown, OK. It seems that during the civil war the Confederates liberated the four kegs of gold coins from the Union Army during a battle in Kansas. As the Confederates were making their way south through Oklahoma with the gold coins they were attacked by a group of outlaws who subsequently liberated the coins from the Confederates. I’m reminded of a saying here, let’s see…… oh yea, easy come, easy go! Unfortunately for the Confederates the outlaws were a pretty ruthless bunch and killed all of the Confederates. It is believed the gold coins are still stashed away in the “hidden cave”, never recovered by the outlaws.