Spanish Treasure in Arkansas

Have you ever heard of Eden Bluff, Arkansas? Well if you haven’t you might want to look it up.

Back in 1922 a man by the name of Anthony Fenniger from Denver, Colorado “stumbled” across a rock with several carved symbols on it while squirrel hunting in what he called the White River country in Arkansas. According to Mr. Fenniger he found the stone with the carvings “across the river from the bluff”. The stone was partially covered with moss and dirt and he had to clean the rock of to see all of what he termed “hieroglyphics”. Mr. Fenniger said he brought the find to the attention of a “native” who explained to him that the stone was a map to a Spanish treasure worth $2,500,000.

The treasure apparently originated from a group of Spanish settlers arriving in the area only to find hostile Indians. The settlers were able to hide their treasure and mark the location well before being attacked by the Indians and loosing their lives. This treasure is supposedly hidden in a tunnel on the mountainside. I’m not sure why a group of Spanish “settlers” would be hauling around that much gold but that’s what the story calls them.

According to a newspaper account, the Spanish government mounted an expedition to the area in 1900 and made an “extended search” for the treasure but they were unable to find it. If the Spanish government made a search for the treasure this would imply to me that this group of “settlers” weren’t settlers at all. Maybe they came into the area to recover something that had been left behind by the Spanish many years prior and never made the recovery or maybe they were trying to transport the gold to a port so it could be shipped to Spain. The newspaper account says that the “settlers” were in the area with their treasure “more than 150 years ago”. That would make the original story from some time around 1750. This would make me think the “settlers” were probably miners.

After Mr. Fenniger found the stone and heard the stories of the Spanish treasure he went back to Denver and formed a company whose sole purpose was to search for the treasure. Mr. Fenniger was certain that the stone he had found was the “key” to finding the treasure because no one before him had found it. To my knowledge Anthony Fenniger’s company never found the treasure either.

Several other private searches for this treasure have been made over time but no one has reported finding it either. Would you report finding a tunnel full of Spanish gold to anybody? I mean, really?? Especially if the Spanish government had looked for it before? That would probably be one really big can of worms to get into! You’d probably only be able to sit back and watch Uncle Sam and Spain duke it out over who gets to keep it.