Buzzard Hill, Oklahoma & Spanish Gold

No, that is not a typographical error, I meant to say Buzzard Hill and not Buzzards Roost. These are two completely different places, actually three but I will get to that later. This treasure will be for the hearty treasure hunter who doesn’t mind doing some extra research and some real digging.

Back when Oklahoma was frog territory (belonging to the Frenchies) there was a group of Spaniards secretly working a gold mine on a small tree covered hill in eastern Oklahoma. This group of Spaniards had built there own smelter near the mine and were steadily making gold ingots, occasionally loading some them on a small boat and floating them down the Arkansas River to the Mississippi River and then on to New Orleans were they purchased their supplies.

It seems on one occasion a member of the Spanish party got drunk in a nearby town and blabbed to one of the French soldiers about the gold mine. Once the rest of the group found out about this blunder they new the frogs would be coming to investigate and take all of their gold. In an effort to keep this from happening they loaded all of the gold ingots they had made into the mineshaft and backfilled it, sealing it shut. It also seems that they dug a very deep hole and put the Spaniard who blabbed about the mine in this hole and buried him alive, standing upright in the hole. Yikes! And they say A.A. is supposed to be tough!

Now I know most of you are saying, yea right, this is just like all of the other lost treasure stories. But hold on now, this one gets a little more interesting. It seems that back in 1850 a group of Spaniards came into the area searching two rivers for some cryptic symbols. It is unknown if they found any of those symbols but they left the area shortly afterward empty handed. The two rivers they searched are supposedly the Grand River and the Elk River but I would check the area first because the Grand and Elk that I found was a lot farther north of the location of the hill.

Sometime in 1882 a Mexican arrived in the area and approached a local rancher for help locating a specific hill. He told the rancher he was looking for something that his grandfather had told him countless stories about, a treasure buried in a mine. Once they found the hill, an easy task for the rancher, the Mexican enlisted the aid of the rancher and his family to do some digging to prove to the rancher that he knew what he was talking about.

During the digging they uncovered a stone with a cross carved in it. A little more digging below this stone revealed the skeleton of a man standing upright. At another spot where the Mexican had them dig they uncovered two more skeletons, those of an adult woman and a child. These skeletons were laid across each other forming the shape of a cross. At yet another spot that they were told to dig at by the Mexican they uncovered a rock wall that had several Spanish carvings on it. No one except for the Mexican new what the carvings meant and the Mexican refused to tell anyone unless the rancher paid him $10,000 in cash.

The Mexican said if he was paid the cash then he would tell the rancher where the mine was and the rancher could keep all of the gold in the mine. Try as he might, the rancher couldn’t come up with the ten grand and the Mexican headed back to Mexico. OK, I agree, this part sounds a little fishy to me too.

After the Mexican had left, the rancher and his sons continued to look for the mine and during that process they did find some old tools and the smelter the Spaniards used but they never found the sealed mine.

Where is this sealed mine full of gold ingots supposed to be? In the side of a tree covered hill known as Buzzard Hill, located in LeFlore County, Oklahoma. This particular Buzzard Hill is not a named place on a topographical map so you will have to do some research to find it’s exact location. Some put it just north of Spiro, Oklahoma and others put it near Pocola, Oklahoma. I would look North of Spiro, near the Arkansas River if it were me.

And just to make it a little more difficult for you, there is a hill in Oklahoma named Buzzard Hill on a topographical map but this is not the correct hill. That hill is located in Comanche County, Oklahoma not too far from Buzzards Roost. Are you confused yet?

For what it’s worth, I would say that this could be a very viable treasure lead and since the rock wall and skeletons have already been uncovered (and probably covered back up) the spot may not be too hard to find and a chat with some of the locals could give you a wealth of information. You can also look at some of the old news articles from the Daily Oklahoman for more information. There have been a couple of articles about this treasure in that paper over the years.

Pay close attention to how the clues were hidden for this mine, the ones that were found were buried several feet deep. There had to be clues telling where to dig but you would have to know to dig for the actual clues. Keep in mind too that the opening to this mine may just be big enough for a man to crawl into which makes it more difficult to find, or does it?