Monday, December 29, 2008

One More in Le Flore County, OK, Brushy Mountain


If you venture into Le Flore County, Oklahoma to look for Buzzard Hill and that Spanish treasure or even Skullyville you might want to stay a day or two longer and check out the area around Brushy Mountain. I’ll get the fine print out of the way up front; there are four mountains in Oklahoma named Brushy Mountain so make sure you are looking at the one in Le Flore County and not somewhere else.

This treasure is another one linked to the Spanish. It is said to consist of over 12 million dollars in gold doubloons and ingots hidden by Spanish Traders who thought an Indian attack was imminent.

As with the Buzzard Hill treasure, several Spaniards, some say as many as six over a period of time from 1850 to 1926, came into the area of Brushy Mountain looking for clues to this lost treasure. A man named Clutter even did some digging on the south side of Brushy Mountain where he had found several clues from an old Spanish map he was given to hunt for the treasure. His digging uncovered a skeleton, several hundred arrow heads, some grinding stones and pestles but no gold. Some of the clues he found included a series of drill holes above where he dug and a shaped ledge, all of which were apparently on his map. He had interpreted the symbols as marking the location of the cave that the gold was in but he never found the cave.

In 1968 some Spanish armor was found by a treasure hunter on Brushy Mountain which would at least prove the Spanish were there just in case you have any doubts.

This story and the one about the treasure on Buzzard Hill both seem to intermingle their clues when you read about the stories. Some of the old Spanish and Mexican searches may have been looking for clues to one treasure and their story was told with the other and vice versa. The Spaniards that came into the area looking for clues along the two rivers were probably searching for this treasure on Brushy Mountain and not the treasure on Buzzard Hill since Brushy Mountain is actually in the area of Elk and Grand Rivers. I should point out that Elk River wasn’t always called Elk River, it used to be the Cowskin River.

There are a few stories of a lost Spanish mine in this area and some start at a spot in the next county called Standing Rock. Some of these stories and clues may all be connected and others may be to one of the other treasures in the area. Several carvings and drill holes have been found in the area of Standing Rock, Buzzard Hill and Brushy Mountain.

The good thing about the treasure on Brushy Mountain is that the clues and the treasure itself may not be as hard to find as the one on Buzzard Hill. I’m not saying it will be easy because if it was it would already be gone but, the Spanish working the mine at Buzzard Hill had more time to make and hide their clues where as the Spanish traders were in fear of an imminent Indian attack and probably hid that treasure relatively fast, making most if not all of the clues visible, as in above ground.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Skullyville, Oklahoma

It seems as though I am stuck in Le Flore County, Oklahoma. I have one more place for you to check out if you go to look for the other treasure sites in this county. This spot is now a ghost town with no buildings left, but the town was named after money.

Skullyville, Oklahoma was established in 1831 by Major Francis Armstrong as the location of an Indian Agency responsible for paying annuities to the Choctaw Indians. Annuities that were always paid in gold! The name of the town was from the Choctaw word for money, “iskuli”.

The town site contained several springs and the Indian Agency building was built next to one of the largest springs located on a small hill. The Choctaw Indians that came to live in and around the town built log homes to live in, many of which lasted for more than 100 years. The Choctaws began arriving in the town in 1832, just after the town was established.

The gold coins used to pay the Indian annuities were shipped by boat to the town in kegs. It is said that the kegs of gold coins “were often left in the yard or on the front porch of the Agency, day and night without guard”. As more Indians moved into the area so did businesses, wanting to sell their wares to the newly paid Indians.

Sometime around 1845 a school for girls, Hope School, was established one mile east of town and a school for boys, Fort Coffee Academy, was established near the Arkansas River, also not far from the town. These schools closed down during the civil war but the girl’s school opened back up in 1871 but eventually closed again in 1896.

The route through Skullyville was used by the forty-niners to go to and from California and the Butterfield Overland Mail Route used the town as the first stage stop out of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

When the town was first established the post office was known as the Choctaw Agency and then the named changed to Skullyville in 1860 and then was renamed again in 1871 as Oak Lodge.

Once the Civil War came along the town was used as an outpost by the Confederate troops until the Union army showed up and captured the town. The Union forces burned many of the buildings and homes and the town never recovered.

The post office was closed in 1917 and nothing but the cemetery remains of the town now.

Because of the constant delivery and payout of gold coins to the Indians and the town’s involvement in the Civil War, not to mention being a stage stop, this location could prove to be a bonanza of relics and small personal caches.

The location of Skullyville/Oak Lodge is in Le Flore County, OK in Section 17, Township 9, Range 26 East or one mile north and 2 ½ miles east of Spiro. Look for Old Fort Coffee on a topographical map near the Arkansas River.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Arkansas Treasure

In the fall of 1921 Anthony Fenninger stumbled over a stone covered with carvings while squirrel hunting near Eden's Bluff in the White River country. The stone was found across the river from the bluff.

Supposedly around 1900 the Spanish Government made an exhaustive search in the area for gold hidden more than 150 years before by a party of settlers. The search was eventually called off.

In 1911 a group of locals were reported to have uncovered a tunnel but the search was abandoned after one of the members was killed in a landslide. The Ozark Mountains in Arkansas still hide this hidden cache and for those willing to do the research I'm sure more information is still out there to be found.



Fayetteville Arkansas - Around 1904 a lady from Mexico came into the area searching for gold that was hidden during the Civil War. She had a map in her possession. The map was on parchment and those who had seen the map thought that the gold was buried near Cane Hill. The gold was supposed to be of Spanish or Mexican origin.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

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?

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Lehigh, Oklahoma, A Ghost Town with Potential


Here’s something for the artifact hunters and the cache hunters too. This area has the potential of producing all kinds of finds if you can get past the trash that will most likely be around the area.

Lehigh, Oklahoma was established in 1880 as a coal camp and grew into a town from there. They conducted both strip mining and shaft mining in the area, producing a whopping 1200 tons of coal per day. In its hay day Lehigh had a population of about 2000 people and the coal mine had a payroll of more than $100,000 per month. There were several businesses in the town including an ice plant, three large hotels, cotton gins, a flourmill and a three story Opera House (built by the Masons for you KGC guys out there). Because of the Opera House and the quality of the programs there, Lehigh, OK was known as the “cultural center of Indian Territory".
The masons reserved the third floor of this building for themselves and held their meetings there.

The town folk consisted of a mixing pot of cultures including Italians, American Indians, Chinese, frogs and Germans, just to mention a few. If you find any carvings in the area they could be from any one of these groups and would be a very good learning experience on interpreting symbols.

The town was divided somewhat by income. The more prosperous lived in West Lehigh in an area known as “Quality Hill”. The area along the railroad tracks was known as “Wildcat Row”, especially on the two days a month the miners were paid.

Besides mining, Lehigh, OK acted as a marketing center for farm goods from the area such as wheat and cotton. In one year alone five thousand bales of cotton and fifty thousand bushels of wheat went threw the town.

Lehigh, OK was designated as the County Seat of Coal County but the seat was later moved to Coalgate, OK.

There are very few buildings still standing in the town now, the opera house, along with some other buildings burned downed and the railroad abandoned the line through the town in 1956. There are a few brick buildings still standing and even a few residents left in the town, most of which live in the few houses still standing on Wildcat Row near the old railroad tracks. All of the houses on “Quality Hill” are gone. I would think that area of housing would be a great place to run a detector and if you are into bottle hunting, the privies from those homes would probably be a bonanza of artifacts and bottles.

Because there was more than $100,000 a month being paid out to the miners I would bet there are some small, and maybe some not so small caches of money around the town, especially on Quality Hill. A few gold coins can go a long ways at today’s prices.

Lehigh, OK is located in Coal County, Oklahoma in Sections 13 and 14, approximately five miles south of Coalgate, OK.

Good Luck!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Alternative Detectors


Treasure hunters are always looking for the right equipment for the right job. Sometimes the right piece of equipment is very expensive and sometimes you can find what you need really cheap.

There are as many different detectors out there as there are treasure stories. Each one has its good and bad points and some are very specific in their use. This article is about one of those different pieces of equipment that wasn’t designed to hunt treasure with but in some cases will do the trick nicely.

What I am talking about is a modern version of a dip needle. This dip needle is made by Aqua Survey Instruments out of Cincinnati, OH. It is very simple to use and if you do your research you can get them very cheaply. The company is still in business and still making this particular device however you can find older, used versions on places like e-bay for a lot less. A new one sells for around $135-$165. If you are careful, you can get them around $15-$25. I know of one that just went for a grand total of $11 in the last couple of weeks.

These instruments are light, weighing in just under one pound and small in size, approximately 3 ¼ x 3 ½ x 2 ¼ inches in size. They don’t need batteries and they will work just about anywhere. Their big draw back is that they work on the earth’s magnetic field and will only locate steel and iron. If you are hunting for outlaw loot then this isn’t such a bad thing since the outlaws like to bury their caches in things like cast iron pots.

Another draw back to these instruments is their depth. The depth and size of the object will have a direct bearing on how the needle deflects because of the target. The bigger the target, the more deflection of the needle.

These are very simple to use. You just open up the top of the case, point the front of the instrument to magnetic north and start walking. If you cross something that affects the magnetic field such as a big iron pot or chest then the needle will move. The more magnetic interference caused by the object the more the needle will move. A dutch oven in the ground at a depth of about three feet will almost peg the needle. I wonder what an old Wells Fargo safe would do?

I wouldn’t want to rely on one of these as a sole source of verification of a buried treasure but it can give you a reading to check further with another instrument. If you are looking for treasure in places where carrying a metal detector is, ummm, too obvious, then this is something you might consider.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Templars and Hawaii?


For a lot of us right now it is cold and snowy outside and although I do most of my treasure hunting during the winter it doesn’t stop me from daydreaming about a tropical island every now and then. That brings us to this article; this one is for the conspiracy theorists in the crowd that like to research the Knights Templar. This would probably even include those that search for the KGC mega-bucks treasures.

Let’s see, tropical islands, oh yea, Hawaii! The state of Hawaii consists of several islands, most of which are inundated with tourists. There is one privately owned island within the chain that is known as the “Forbidden Island” because the owners of the island have steadfastly refused to allow anyone on the island, at least until recently. Now, if you have enough money and make your reservation well in advance you can be one of the few that is allowed on the island for a day, one day only and while being escorted, to scuba dive or hunt. This island’s real name is Ni’Ihau (pronounced nee-ee-how).

Ni’Ihau has no running water or electricity except for a few generators and the island only has about 160 full time residents. The family that owns the island will only allow individuals of Hawaiian ancestry to live on the island and until recently wouldn’t allow any visitors to the island, even family members of those living there.

I know you are wondering what this has to do with the Knights Templar. Those of you familiar with the Templars will recognize the name of “Sinclair”. Back in 1864 the Scottish Sinclair family, Elizabeth Sinclair to be exact, bought the island of Ni’Ihau from King Kamehameha V for $10,000 and they have never done anything with it. They also bought 51,000 acres of land on the island of Kaua’i which they still own to this day. The land has been handed down through the family for generations and is now owned by the Robinsons who are descendants of the Sinclairs.

The island of Ni’Ihau is estimated to be worth well over one billion dollars today, and yes, that is with a B but the family refuses to sell it or allow any growth on the island to turn it into a money making venture.

This would beg the question, why would you have an island that your family has owned for generations that is worth billions in development and not do anything with it? A Hawaiian island no less! Since you are descendants of the Sinclairs, would it have anything to do with the Templars and maybe something that is hidden or stored on the island?

The island itself is 18 miles long and 5 miles wide and is considered a somewhat barren land with very little rainfall.

Have I peeked anybody’s interest yet? I didn’t do a lot or research on this one but I found it interesting that the Scottish Sinclair family bought an island and have refused to allow anybody on it for more than 140 years. Maybe some of the missing Templar treasure is on this island or, maybe the family is just nuts.

Those of you interested in conspiracies should jump all over this one. Good luck and if you need help searching the island and want to pay for my airfare to Hawaii I will gladly help on this one! (I really like to fly First Class when I go but I'm worth it!)

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Rocky Face Mountain, Georgia

Here is a very short article about an unbelievable treasure.

Somewhere on Rocky Face Mountain near Keith, Georgia is a cave full of gold bars. Now these aren’t supposed to be your ordinary old gold bars. We are talking about one thousand gold bars, each SIX feet long! These would probably weigh a ton or more each depending on how wide and deep they are.

The story says that in 1890 a man, whose name was not mentioned, found a cave on Rocky Face Mountain with the gold bars in it. He apparently took the time to count and measure the bars but he didn’t take very good notes on how to find the cave again.

The gold bars were too big for him to move by himself so he went to town to get some help. Of course you know the rest of the story here, he couldn’t find the cave again and this massive treasure was lost once again to the countryside.

Now I don’t know who would have made six foot long gold bars and I sure don’t know how they would have moved them into a cave, especially if it was on the side of a mountain but if you live in Georgia and want to check this out you can probably find more about it in the local paper of the time.

And send us a photo of one of those six-foot long gold bars if you find them. We won’t tell anybody, honest!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008


As with most things I write about I am no expert and when it comes to Pancho Villa, there will be a lot of people that know more about this than me. With that said, I found a couple of interesting stories that caught my attention about this man and his alleged treasures.

Because the President of Mexico could not contain Pancho Villa he decided to give him the State of Durango in Mexico and five million pesos a year to keep him appeased and stop his bandit activities. Pancho Villa apparently amassed a fortune over the years, thanks to El Presidente and his own looting and it is said that he hid this fortune in the floor of a cave in the Sierra Madre Mountains in northern Mexico.

This particular fortune is supposed to consist of “stacks upon stacks of gold bars along with bag after bag of American and Mexican coins” totaling a whopping 90 million dollars. Maybe Pancho Villa was a member of the KGC! Just kidding!

Pancho Villa allegedly took this huge fortune of gold bars and coins into the Sierra Madres on wagons with his trusted officers and some “peons”. Once the treasure was safely hidden away in the cave Pancho Villa killed everyone in the group and returned back to his camp alone. Just how many officers would he have to shoot before the others caught on to what was going on?

Somebody returned the favor in 1923 when Pancho Villa was assassinated, never able to spend that massive fortune of gold.

It is said that this treasure could be in a cave at the headwaters of the Rio Presidio River near the village of Tepuxtla in Mexico.

A second huge treasure associated with PanchoVilla is supposed to consist of 122 silver bars that were liberated from a train by Pancho and his men. The train was attacked near Chavarria and as they were making their escape they were attacked by government troops at San Andres. Pancho and his men supposedly escaped the government troops during the night but not before burying the silver bars and one of their dead comrades. This all happened “on the road to Bachiniva”. So somewhere around Bachiniva, Mexico lies an unmarked grave with one set of bones and one hundred and twenty-two silver bars.

If you are the adventurous type and don’t mind dodging the drug smugglers, the unscrupulous military and the crooked government these could be the treasures just for you!