The Copper Map

Any treasure hunter in the Midwest part of the United States who has done any reading at all about treasure maps has heard of the copper map. Even many of those that aren’t from the Midwest have heard of it, some know it as the “wolf” map. A name given to it by another treasure hunter a few years back in reference to the "wolf" figure in the center of the map.

If you haven’t heard about it (you should really get out more) the quick run down is that this is a map that was etched onto a sheet of copper and then rolled up, stuck into an iron kettle with several other objects and buried on or around Buzzard’s Roost in Oklahoma. Joe Hunter and another treasure hunter unearthed the kettle back in the 1930s while looking for a Jesse James treasure and the mystery began.

There are a lot of stories floating around about what the map leads to and where it goes and even where it actually came from. Some say the map was made by Jesse James as part of his involvement in the KGC, you can imagine me rolling on the floor in laughter as I wrote that. Others say it was made by Jesse James and is strictly an outlaw map going to one or more of his treasure caches and there are still others that have their own individual theories as to the origin and complexity of the map. I would be included in that last group. Besides the KGC and regular old outlaw map theories there are at least five other theories that I am aware of about the maps origin and how it should be used. One of those theories is that the copper map is part of a series of maps that need to be used together.

If you have read any of the forums you know that Okie and I are both working on this map and we both have different ideas about who made the map, how it works and where it goes. We routinely give each other a hard time about it but we both will jump at the chance to help each other out, all for the sake of solving the riddle (and maybe finding just a little gold in the process!) I personally know of at least six other people who are working on this map and more than one says they have it solved. I haven't heard of anyone digging anything up yet so I would say it's still up for grabs.

There are those that think the map goes to a location in south central Oklahoma and others that think it goes farther north. Some think that it doesn’t go to a location in Oklahoma at all and there is more than one that have some pretty wild ideas about how this map works and how much area it covers. Out of all of the people I know working on this map, the main consensus is that it goes to a location in southern Oklahoma. Does that narrow it down for you?

There are very few good copies of this map floating around out there and to my knowledge there has never been a good clean copy of the map published anywhere. Dwight Traina posted a copy on the Internet many years ago and it is still available to this day. (http://bluewolf.users.50megs.com//cementmap.jpg) Even this copy didn’t have all of the symbols and information on it that I feel tells the whole story about where this map came from and how it should be used.

If you are a connoisseur of treasure maps then this would be a good one to sink your teeth into for practice. There is a lot going on in this map and I’m not sure all of the symbols will ever be interpreted. I don’t think that will keep someone from uncovering a treasure or two using the map, there is more than one treasure depicted on the map in my opinion, and it’s possible all of the treasure locations can be found without interpreting all of the symbols. This may seem a little strange but I believe enough information exists on the map to give the locations of the treasures without having to interpret every last symbol. This is because there are additional symbols and markers in the field that correspond to the map, at least at my location there is!

I believe this map employs several intentional “tricks” and there are others that might be considered tricks but they are more of a style of mapmaking instead of actual tricks. How’s that for confusing.

As you have probably noticed, I have been very careful about what I say about this map. At this point there are several people including myself that are actively working this map and some of those people and I share information with each other concerning our theories and interpretations. I don’t want to inadvertently give away somebody’s information or even mine for that matter so I have kept this article very general in nature.

I would love to post a nice clean copy of this map for all to see but that would get me in trouble with more than one person and besides that, I’m not ready to give away those secrets just yet. With any luck at all you may get to see more of the map when Okie gets his book finished or when I dig up the treasure! :-)

You better save this quick, Okie is liable to delete the post! Just kidding, no big secrets given away today. I did post Dwight’s copy of the map at the top of the article if you are wondering where that copy came from.