Treasure Tales, Colorado

Just like Arizona, Colorado is loaded with lost mines and caches of gold nuggets that never made it to the assayer’s office.

Somewhere in the La Plata Mountains in the Four Corners area is a rich gold mine found by the Spanish. The date of the discovery of the mine changes from one story to another but the most logical dates are the 1770’s or the 1570’s. It appears that the Spanish may have worked the mine for as many as 25 years and the mine was named the Josephine Mine. The story says that the Spaniards melted down the gold they had mined during one summer and used it to make a solid gold statue of the Christ Child.

The Spaniards were transporting the statue and other gold they had to Santa Fe and were attacked by Indians. The survivors of the attack hid the golden statue in a cave as they made their way out of the mountains. The Josephine mine is said to be located somewhere near Dolores, CO and several Spanish arrastras have been found in that area.

If you are thinking about searching for the statue I hope you aren’t superstitious. There are apparently several stories of prospectors that happened across the statue and went insane or died shortly after seeing it.

Here’s one for all of you outlaw gold chasers. In the late 1840’s a group of outlaws had a lucky robbery where they made off with a cache of money “worth hundreds of thousands of dollars” in Sacramento, California. The majority of the group was killed while trying to escape but two of the outlaws made it to a spot that was once known as the James Will Sheep Ranch a few miles east of Clifford in Lincoln County, Colorado. The two that escaped buried the money in a dutch oven (must have been a really big dutch oven) and then made three mounds around it to look like graves. The three graves were in the shape of a triangle and they made headstones for each grave. The two outlaws used the false date of 1857 and their own names on two of the headstones and on the third they marked “Unknown- 1857”. The dutch oven was in the middle of the triangle formed by the three fake graves.

In 1931 one of the tombstones was found and another was found later in 1934. The one found in 1934 was marked “D. Grover and Joseph Foxe Lawe-- August 8, 1957”. Several searches of the old sheep ranch were made back in the 1930’s and 1940’s but the third headstone and the cache has never been found, at least not that we know of.

The Power of the Mind, Part 2

Probably the most common thing people think about when someone mentions using the mind and treasure hunting is dowsing. Dowsing maps or dowsing in the field is a form of mind power and some people are better at it than others. By studying dowsing you can learn about how it works and what it takes to dowse. You might even be able to become an accomplished dowser. By knowing how to dowse it can help you open your mind up when in the field even if you are not dowsing and possibly find those clues you may have missed. Some people would call this getting a gut feeling or intuition, for the women treasure hunters in the crowd.

I would recommend that every one read something on dowsing, either a book or pages from different web sites, etc. and then try some dowsing on your own. You can use a set of rods you can make yourself or a pendulum made from just about anything and a piece of string. Practice with whichever method you choose and see how it works for you. Having an open mind when treasure hunting will increase your chances at seeing things you normally wouldn’t and finding things that you didn’t expect. Whether you call it luck, a gut feeling, intuition or good mojo, it’s all about using your mind, even if you don’t know it.

In my opinion, the basics of dowsing are about connecting to an energy source that encompasses everything on earth. If you have seen any of the old Star Wars movies you can think of that energy as “The Force”. You can call me Yoda if it helps! By tapping into this energy you are getting information that travels along the energy field, kind of like plugging an appliance into a wall outlet. Providing you have paid your electric bill, the electricity is always there, you just have to plug into it.

If you have never dowsed before you might try the bent rods first and see what happens. A lot of people are able to locate water using rods and if you practice, you can find just about anything once you have trained your mind to look for that object. A simple test to see how sensitive you might be with rods is to make a pair and then go out into your yard and locate your water line. If you can do it several times and at different spots along the line then you are probably ready to try something more. Have someone hide an object in your yard for you to find. Concentrate on what that object is and continue to concentrate on it as you walk around with the rods and see if you can locate what was hidden. It doesn’t have to be buried.

If you want to get answers to questions, in a yes or no fashion, then dowsing with a pendulum could be the thing for you. In using a pendulum you are allowing it to swing freely and it will swing one way for yes and another way for no. I have read where some dowsers “train” their pendulums to swing a certain way for yes and another way for no but I have found that if you let the pendulum do it’s own thing it seems to be more accurate, at least for me. In most cases a pendulum will swing in a clockwise motion for one and a counterclockwise motion for the other. In my case the pendulum swings front to back for one and side-to-side for the other.

It’s my opinion that trying to train the pendulum to do what you want it to do interferes with what the pendulum is meant to do in the first place but I guess that can go either way.

There are charts that you can buy or make that shows yes and no along with numbers or letters on them so that you can hold the pendulum in front of or over the chart and let the pendulum swing in the direction of the letter or number or the words yes or no. This technique is kind of how a map dowser works. A map dowser will hold the pendulum at the edge of a map and ask it to swing in the direction of the location. They will do this continually around the map until narrowing down a spot on the map where the pendulum basically draws a line from two different directions forming a cross over the spot. There are some variations on this method and every dowser has his or her own specific method of dowsing a map.

You can buy a ready made pendulum or you can make one out of just about anything but you may need to try two or three different kinds to find something that works best for you. Even the slightest bit of difference in weight seems to have an effect on how well they work. It’s a lot about feeling comfortable with the pendulum you are using. When you use a pendulum you have to have a clear mind. You have to concentrate on what you are asking and you can’t drift off thinking about work or something else during the process. I tend to only be able to dowse for 20-30 minutes at a time before I find myself my tiring and loosing concentration. Can anybody say A.D.D.? It has also been my experience that you have to be precise in your questions when asking them.

You may find yourself asking a question like “can I find this buried treasure?” This appears to be simple enough but like I have tried to teach my youngest daughter, what you CAN do and what you WILL do can be two completely different things. That would mean that the proper question to ask would be “will I find this treasure?” So when you phrase your questions, think about them clearly and be precise. I find that it helps to write down the questions before I start work with a pendulum so that I’m not trying to think up questions while dowsing.

In the Part One of this article I talked about thinking positive and clearing your mind. These are two very important things in dowsing. Your mind has to be clear of the clutter to get the correct answers and you have to believe that you can dowse or you won’t be able to.

I’m sure your wondering if I have been successful at dowsing, I can’t say that I have ever found treasure by dowsing but it has lead me to a couple of clues. I have been able to answer questions using a pendulum that affect my everyday life including dowsing the sex, date of birth and time of birth of my first grandchild months before she was born. I can say that it has been a very interesting experience and one that I am still researching and trying to perfect.

If you have ever wondered at all about dowsing I would urge you to read more about it and the different ways it can be done. I apologize to the real dowsers out there for butchering the “how to” of your art but I’m just trying to cover the basics here in a short article.

The Power of the Mind Part 1

There will be some of you that will think I have lost my mind, thinking that I am rambling on about some new age psycho-babble but please bear with me just a little. I’m sure many of you are looking at your computer screen and wondering just what in the world does the power of the mind have to do with treasure hunting? Well, since you asked, let me tell you.

Being a success at treasure hunting, and almost anything else takes perseverance, determination and a belief in our selves and the belief that we can succeed. There are a lot of people that get into treasure hunting because they think it is a way to get rich quick and when it doesn’t work out that way they move onto something else. Those of us that have continued hunting, even after many disappointments and frustration have the belief that treasure is out there and that we can solve the puzzle to find it. Keeping this belief strong in our minds is one of the things that helps us find and correctly interpret treasure signs. It’s called “passion”. Without it you’re just another person wondering around in the woods.

Almost all of us have been walking in the field and for some reason have felt compelled to go look in a specific area and when we got there found something of importance. If you haven’t, then this may be even harder for you to grasp. I have told several people that treasure hunt that if you trust your gut, then stick with your gut. When it comes to “reading” symbols or clues it’s all about interpretation and part of interpretation is listening to that little voice in your head. Now if you happen to have several little voices in your head then interpreting treasure signs may be the least of your worries.

With all of the stress of everyday life most of us look forward to getting outside and hunting for treasure. It gives us a chance to forget about the other things going on in the world, at least for a few hours or even days if we are lucky. If you don’t clear your mind of the every day things then you can’t concentrate on what you are doing and won’t be able to “tune in” to the information that is out there. I know you think that concentrating on what you are doing and having a clear mind are one in the same but it usually doesn’t work that way. Concentrating is what you do when you are walking on a very thin ledge high above the ground, trying not to have a really bad day. Clearing your mind is more of a meditative thing.

One of the best pieces of information I was ever taught, and I have heard it from more than one successful treasure hunter is this; when you are at a treasure site and you get stumped, sit down and relax, take a few deep breaths, have a drink of water and just look out over the area. You will see things you haven’t seen before and there will be areas that you will be drawn to. While you are sitting there relaxed, take the time to think like an outlaw or Spaniard or who ever it was that put down the treasure you are looking for. Think about where you would have left a marker or the treasure. Take time to understand the circumstances of how the treasure came to be hidden in the first place. Think about why the group that hid the treasure picked that spot and what are the ways in and out of the area.

All of this may sound like a waste of time to some of you but I guarantee it will work. It has for me time and time again. When you get frustrated at a site it’s time to take a step back, take a deep breath and get back to the basics.

Here’s a little more new aged psycho-babble for you, POSITIVE THINKING. Positive thinking is one of the hardest things to teach people because most people don’t think that the mind has any control over the circumstances that surround us. Most of you have probably heard that like attracts like, therefore if you think negatively then the negative energy of life will be what you attract, if you think positive then positive things will begin to happen.

Let me step outside the box just a little further as I end Part One and mention Karma. As treasure hunters we are all just a little paranoid, I think it comes naturally, but every once in a while we find ourselves wanting or needing help. Who we trust and why is part of those gut feelings but when we get screwed by someone, and it will happen, we normally have little recourse. Although it might not help much at the very moment we realized we have been screwed, Karma, in my opinion, is the thing that keeps the world in balance. There are times we can’t control what is going to happen and there are times that we can. The more you treasure hunt the more people you will meet and eventually, if you are a decent person, you will find yourself getting tips or giving tips on treasure hunting. What goes around comes around and it usually happens when you least expect it and I always prefer good things to happen to me instead of bad. That’s one of the reasons I like posting articles on this blog. I appreciate the opportunity that has been given to me by Okie and I am trying to share some knowledge with other treasure hunters, helping my Karma bank account along the way. Something everybody should consider.

This article was meant to set you up for the second part of mind power in treasure hunting, which is about dowsing. I will be posting the second part in a few days but I wanted to get your minds ready and open to something different.

Treasure Found 2

There is still plenty of treasure out there for us to find, so don't despair. Here are just a few more examples of what is out there hidden away waiting on a lucky person to come along.

Tom Chewning from Missouri found a treasure he said he had seen in a dream. He found 1400 Spanish gold and silver coins in the corner of his field just like in his dream. The coins were dated from 1775 to 1802. He had told his neighbor's about his dream long before he made his find. They had thought he may have been losing his mind, but I guess he proved them wrong.

1932, New Providence Island, Bahama - A fisherman found five gold bars hidden beneath a wild palm tree in rocks bearing strange symbols. These markings resembled Masonic symbols.

1948, Oklahoma - Joe Hunter and partner unearthed a wash tub with 65 pounds of silver ore hidden inside. Joe was a well known Oklahoma treasure hunter and met with some success. The nuggets seemed to be a combination of lime, ash, and silver ore.

1927, Austin Texas - Spanish gold was supposedly found in Johnson Creek within city limits.

1933, Southern Miss. - Forrest Lea unearthed a chest containing Spanish gold coins, jewelry, and a gold pocket knife. According to legend a previous land owner had hidden his wealth in five locations for safe keeping until the Civil War ended. Thieves stole a map to the hidden goods and dug up three of the caches. This would leave one more for an interested treasure hunter to find.

Treasure Tales, Arizona

Arizona is loaded with more lost mines and quartz outcroppings full of gold than almost any other state. Here’s a couple of Arizona treasure stories to wet your whistle, starting with Gila County, AZ.

This is about a mine known as the “Lost Soldier Mine”. There was a soldier named Sanders who was stationed at Fort Apache in 1872. During that year Sanders led a group of other soldiers on a scouting mission looking for Indians. The detachment of soldiers traveled along the east end of the Sierra Ancha Mountains until they came to Coon Creek. Once at the creek they followed the creek bed about ten miles where they found a waterfall surrounded by quartz rocks. In looking closely at the quartz rocks Sanders noticed it had a large amount of gold mixed in with it. He gathered up some samples and continued on his mission.

Sanders was discharged from the military two years later and he and another man headed for the gold laden quartz that had been found during that fateful mission. Sanders and his partner were never heard from again.

A few years later two men were riding down Coon creek and found a burned out cabin and what was left of the skeletons of two men. It appeared obvious that an Indian attack had occurred at the site. As they looked around one of the men found a piece of quartz near one of the skeletons. Carved into this piece of quartz was the name “Sanders”. The two men traveled to Phoenix with the piece of quartz where they were told of the two men who set out to recover a large vein of gold. As with most treasure stories, our two intrepid finders of the burned out cabin and quartz tried to retrace their tracks back to the cabin but were unable to find it.

Near Yuma, along the Arizona and California border there is a site where 220 gold bars are stacked up waiting for someone to find. There was an army training camp in this mountainous area during World War II. Five trainees assigned to the camp in the 1940’s discovered the gold bars stacked on a flat piece of ground directly in front of a vertically faced wall of volcanic rock. There were two stacks of the gold bars and before leaving the area the trainees counted a total of 220 bars. Once again, the lucky finders of this treasure tried to return to the spot later to recover the bars but were unable to relocate them.

I sure wish somebody would leave me a bunch of gold bars stacked out where I could see them. It sure beats having to dig a hole!

J. Frank Dalton, Jesse James or Not?

The simplest answer to that question is “not”. I could end this article here and let it be that but I know a lot of you wouldn’t appreciate that, so here goes.

J. Frank Dalton may have been many things but Jesse Woodson James was not one of them. It would be simple to point out the discrepancies in the stories told by Orvus Lee Howk, a.k.a. Jesse Lee James III because he went way over the top when telling his stories of Jesse James. It would also be simple to point out all of the discrepancies in the names, dates and places that were allegedly given by J. Frank Dalton during the time he claimed to be Jesse James. The fact is, most of that has already been brought forward in several venues, including this one and has either been ignored, which doesn’t really make sense to a logical person, or the information has been subjugated with even more falsehoods and outright lies.

For those that refuse to see the problems with the information coming from Orvus Howk and J. Frank Dalton and don’t want to do any independent research then I would consider you a hopeless cause. For those of you that are on the fence or are open to changing your mind if the information warrants it then please read on.

We all know about the exhumation of Jesse James’ grave in Kearny, MO and we all know that it ended in a rather unsatisfying way, with several questions still unanswered properly because of where the DNA for testing was actually derived from. Most of us also know that the exhumation in Granbury, TX of J. Frank Dalton ended badly and didn’t resolve anything.

Scientifically, the best evidence I can point to that anyone could look at themselves is a show on the Discovery Channel last year about Jesse James. This two-hour show looked at the history of Jesse James and even did some research into the alleged faked death in 1882. Of particular interest was a retired F.B.I. forensic scientist who was an expert in face recognition and photograph comparison. In his comparison of a photo of J. Frank Dalton to a known photo of Jesse James it was determined these were two very different people. The comparative analysis showed very real and obvious differences between these two people. These differences were based on things that don’t change in a person with age such as bone structures and distances between immovable parts of the face. The differences were so obvious it is my opinion that any logical person looking at the same photos objectively could come to the same conclusion on their own. To me, a logical person, this would end the debate on whether or not J. Frank Dalton was Jesse James. The differences were that obvious.

Someone could go to the trouble and expense of exhuming J. Frank Dalton, now that they now exactly where he is, and do a DNA test if they wanted but for some reason none of the people who adamantly believe that J. Frank Dalton was Jesse James is in a big hurry to do that.

Now for a curve ball most of you probably weren’t expecting. The same forensic specialist compared a photo of the man that was identified as Jesse James killed in 1882 to the same photo known to be Jesse James. It turns out that the dead Jesse James and the photo of a live Jesse James weren’t the same people either. The differences in these two people weren’t as obvious as the differences between Dalton and Jesse James but there were differences. That leaves us with the conundrum of just when did Jesse James die and where is his body? And I might add, just who the hell was that in the death photo that was supposed to be Jesse James? I would grant you that there is a small amount of evidence that would indicate Jesse James didn’t die in 1882 but there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that J. Frank Dalton was not Jesse James.

This article won’t solve the problem of when did Jesse James die but in my opinion it should put to rest the argument of whether or not J. Frank Dalton was Jesse James, he was not.

I will take this opportunity to restate some information that was previously posted. That information has to do with some of the affidavits that Orvus Howk used to “prove” J. Frank Dalton was Jesse James. Some of those affidavits were purchased from another Jesse James want-to-be when his attempt to prove he was JJ failed. That imposter went to prison for shooting someone after it had been proven he wasn’t really Jesse James.

Will the real Jesse James please stand up? Or roll over, which is what he’s probably doing in his grave right now, where ever that is.

Just to recap, Orvus Howk purchased fake affidavits from another Jesse James imposter to prove that the imposter he was promoting was Jesse James. So when Orvus Lee Howk changed his name to Jesse Lee James III he knew he wasn’t related to the famous James boys. This would make Orvus Howk a con man in my book. Scientific evidence proves that J. Frank Dalton wasn’t Jesse James.

This brings us to the billion-dollar question. Since J. Frank Dalton was not Jesse James and Orvus Howk wasn’t related to the famous James boys then where oh where did all of the “secret” information about the Knights of the Golden Circle come from? Was this from the imagination of J. Frank Dalton or did Orvus Howk invent the “depositories” on his own? Maybe Howk took some fabricated stories from Dalton and embellished them on his own. I seriously doubt we will ever know the complete truth about Howk and Dalton because they both changed their names and moved from place to place more often than most of us by new pants.

Treasure Tales, Kansas

In the mostly flat state of Kansas there are several stories of buried and lost treasure. Here are a couple of those you might want to research further.

In Barton County there is a place known as Pawnee Rock near Larned, KS. This is a place where travelers stopped along the old Santa Fe Trail and there are probably numerous artifacts and maybe even small caches in this area to find. There are also a couple of larger caches.

It is said that Coronado, the Spanish explorer, buried a chest of gold worth “several hundred thousand dollars” in the anticipation of an Indian attack that never materialized. Instead of digging the chest up Coronado left it where it was with the intention of returning at a later date to recover the chest. Apparently that date never came because the story goes that the chest is still where it was buried. The chest is buried somewhere near Pawnee Rock. Several Spanish markers and symbols should be in the area around the burial location of the chest.

Another story of buried treasure around Pawnee Rock involves a large wagon and pack train consisting of twelve wagons and 250 mules carrying merchandise and money. The wagon train was, you guessed it, attacked by Indians at Pawnee Rock. The survivors of the attack buried and hid the valuables that were being carried in the “Buffalo Wallows” to the west of Pawnee Rock during a severe winter storm. This cache has never been reported as being recovered.

Another quick story about Pawnee Rock says that Kit Carson was attacked by Indians in this area and buried his own cache of gold coins before escaping but he never returned to retrieve the coins.

Here’s a really intriguing one in Finney County, KS. There were two families from Illinois that decided to travel west and stopped in the extreme southwest corner of Kansas and set up a temporary residence. They found a large cave in the hill country that they intended to call home, at least for a while. The families kids, being kids after all, decided to explore the cavern one day and found a small opening in the back that went into a tunnel. As they crawled into the tunnel it opened into another cave where they came upon several boxes and casks along with a large stack of weapons.

The families soon moved to Arizona where it is said they became two of the wealthiest families in the southwest. I can hear the wheels spinning now. You’re wondering why I would tell a story about a treasure that was found and made two families rich. Well, here’s why.

After many years had passed one of the kids, a son, now an old, man talked about what they had found and said that in the boxes and casks was a large treasure of coins, jewelry and bars along with several books, the guns and some harnesses. The son also said that the two families had only removed two of the casks and one of the boxes before they filled in the opening to the tunnel. He said that they left behind at least 8 or10 casks, 15 boxes and the guns. Since it had been so long since the families had been to the cave the son couldn’t remember anything else about where the cave was except in the hill country in the extreme southwest corner of the state.

Happy hunting!

Treasure Tales, Missouri

Here’s a couple of stories for those of you in Missouri.

In Nodaway County, MO there is the treasure of Dr. Lynn Talbott. This story has been in newspapers and treasure magazines but I thought I would repeat the highlights.

Dr. Talbott moved to Missouri just after the Civil War and built a home he called the “House of Seven Gables”. The home was located two miles west of Barnard, MO. Dr. Talbott practiced medicine in the area and raised cattle. He didn’t believe in banks and apparently took the majority of his pay in gold and silver coins. He would put these coins into small kegs and when a keg got full he would bury it on his property.

In 1879, the good doctor Talbott was murdered by his own two sons while trying to find out the location of the kegs of coins. The two sons were convicted of their crime and hanged in 1881. It is said the doctor’s wife went insane and eventually died and the house burned to the ground a few years after that.

There have been several searches for the kegs of coins but I am not aware of any recoveries. The last time I checked the original ranch had been split into two pieces of land with a road going through them. Different individuals own each piece of land and one of those was pretty adamant about not letting anyone onto his property to search. It has been several years since I researched this and if I remember correctly the original location of the doctor’s home was on the west side of the road that goes through the property. The ownership of the land may have changed hands since I last looked but this still might be a viable treasure just waiting to be recovered.

Here’s a little newer cache to look for. It is located in Sullivan County, MO and was hidden by a modern day outlaw by the name of Fred Burke. Mr. Burke was the leader of an outlaw gang that went on a bank-robbing spree through Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin in 1926. The gang stole gold, silver and currency and then split the proceeds. Fred Burke’s take was supposed to be $100,000 in 1926.

After being successful at robbing banks Mr. Burke decided to quit while he was ahead and he took a job as a hired hand on a farm located just outside of Green City, MO. Fred Burke took on an alias, using the last name of White and lived on the farm. It is said that he hid his treasure at various places on the farm and possibly even in a spot or two in the town of Green City, MO.

The F.B.I. eventually found Fred Burke and put him in prison for life and no one has reported finding any of his caches.
This is another story that could be researched fairly easily using old newspapers to find out exactly where the farm was and how long Fred Burke lived on the farm. With the F.B.I. arresting him in a small town it surely would have made the news.

Treasure Found

We all have dreams of finding that pot of gold, but after some time that dream can fade. I decided to write an article telling of peoples lucky finds from years past. Hopefully this will encourage everyone to keep searching for their own treasures.

In 1904 $15,000 was found near the home of John Fleet. He had a farm near Verona Ky. Mr Fleet had a reputation of being a miser and before he died he confided to a man named Griffith and a servant named "Aunt Cass" that he had hidden 9 quart jars, each containing gold and silver, around the house. These contained $13,000 in gold and $2000 in silver and paper money. Those searching for the money were unable to locate two of the jars and government bonds spoken of in Mr Fleets will.

1922, Duquoin, Ill. William Newton, a wealthy Jefferson County farmer, had withdrawn $10,000 shortly before his death. The money was found in his barn. Mice had chewed some of the $50 and $100 bills up for a nest.

1888 . A farmer was walking along a road 14 miles northeast of Sulphur Springs Texas and found a pot of gold that recent rains had washed up. The pot contained $18,000 in gold coins and was thought to have been hidden by Missouri Guerillas who had turned to robbery after the Civil War. Nearby was a tree with a spike driven into it pointing to the location of the pot.

Howk and Dalton

Could this be Orvus Lee Howk? The young man pictured was arrested in 1930 for trying to obtain a blank checkbook from a bank account that wasn't his. He claimed his name was Jesse James III. He gained enough national attention that the only true son of Jesse James made a public statement saying the young man was a fraud. Jesse James Jr. only had daughters, so there wouldn't have been a JJ the 3rd.

There is also record that this same man was arrested in 1928 and 1929. He had stolen a car and even attempted suicide. He blamed his bad luck on his name. With a little bit of research you will find out Orvus Howk and J Frank Dalton changed their names like most people change their underwear.

I have spent the past few days doing newspaper archive research. In 1939 you will find J frank going simply by the name Frank Dalton and claiming to be the last of Quantrell's Raider's. Through the early 40's he was claiming to be an uncle of the outlaw Dalton brothers. He also claimed to be a cousin of Frank and Jesse James. Do you see a pattern forming here? Why Dalton even scoffed at the idea of Jesse James not being killed in 1882. He claimed to have been wounded along with Jesse James when they tried to surrender at the end of the Civil War. He said he was shot in the leg while Jesse was shot in the stomach. If I read my history right Jesse was shot in the chest at that time.

J Frank even went for a time calling himself the "Kid", as in Billy the Kid. Much of what Dalton and Howk cooked up for a story of Dalton being Jesse was just recycled information that another James imposter had used. John James is the original mastermind of Bigelow being killed instead of Jesse. Even some of the affidavits Dalton/Howk had were from John James.

If you will read the Jesse James Rides Again and all the other publications to Jesse James Was One of His Names, you can see how one false story was told to cover another. Two Jesse James and two Franks and nobody in the gang seeming to really die. There is no record in the Kentucky census of the George James family Dalton claimed as his own. Yet with all this misinformation people still take Howks information as the gospel truth.

Where could the KGC ideas have come from? Well, a person only has to read the San Antonio Light newspaper from Feb. 1938. There was a story called the Empire of the Moon. It was supposedly a dramatization from old records. It even shows KGC symbols. It says a large temple with a noonday sun shown under the dome was the main symbol of the KGC. It also shows the skull and crossbones, a cresent, and a triangle with numbers inside. This story came out at about the time Dalton started writing his own articles and he or Howk could have read the San Antonio Light story and filed it away for use at a later date.

In the end what you have is an old man used to telling untrue stories and a crook promoting him. Still believe in the Dalton/Howks KGC billions? Do some newspaper research for yourself and see how many hundreds of articles were written about the real KGC instead of the fantasy group that Howk created.

Treasure Tales, Arkansas

Here’s a couple of treasure tales for you in the state of Arkansas.

In the far northwest corner of the state, in Benton County, there is said to be a cave concealing a large Spanish treasure. There are two stories about the treasure, one says it’s supposed to be gold bars and chests full of gold coins and the other says it is gold statues taken from several churches in Mexico. Both stories say that the treasure is in a cave that at one time was an old Spanish mine. No matter which story you want to believe, at today’s gold prices this treasure would be worth millions of dollars. You just got to love today’s gold prices!

The treasure is supposed to be located in a cave on the side of a cliff and at one time a large oak tree stood near the cave with a map carved into the tree. Oaks can grow to be pretty old so maybe part of this tree is still there. This treasure site is just off of Highway 59 somewhere between Gravette and Sulphur Springs, just a five-mile stretch of road.

In 1895 a Spaniard arrived in Sulphur Springs with his own map to this treasure. He apparently found several makers about five miles southeast of Sulphur Springs on a farm. The farm was known as the “Dunbar Farm” but I don’t know what date this name is from, if it was from 1895 or later. This is supposed to be in the area of a cave known as “Black Cave”. The Spaniard and the men he had working with him worked for several years cleaning debris out of Black Cave, insisting that he would find the treasure in the cave. The Spaniard died in 1918, never making a recovery. Black Cave is also now known as “Old Spanish Treasure Cave”.

In Cross County, Arkansas a stagecoach robbery occurred in 1890. (I’m sure there was probably more than one, but I’m writing about one in particular.) A lone gunman robbed the stagecoach at Taylors Creek, three miles north of Colt, Arkansas, and made off with its strongbox that contained $7,500 in gold coins. The robber fled east from the robbery only to be found the next day.

The posse that set out after the robber trailed him to a spot about one mile east of where the robbery had occurred. There in the woods they found the highwayman dead from the only shot fired during the robbery the day before. The stagecoach driver apparently was a better shot than he knew.

The strongbox has never been found and it was thought to have been buried somewhere close to where the body was found.

This story should be easy to research and get some specifics about from old newspaper accounts. I doubt the robber had a chance to make many, if any clues but he probably didn’t get a chance to bury the gold very deep either.

Treasure Tales, more for Oklahoma

In researching these stories I am going back to old books and files that I have and some of you may already be aware of these stories. I have a couple that aren’t in any books but I’m sure you will understand that I’m saving those for myself!

In Osage county there is the story of the wagon train returning from the California gold fields in 1862 carrying around $100,000 in gold coins. A man named “Captain Goldie” was leading the wagon train. The wagon train was set upon by a band of Indians who were aware of the gold and had been tracking the wagons for days. Captain Goldie, apparently not a man with much integrity, loaded the gold coins onto horses and took off, leaving the other members of the wagon train to fend for themselves. Captain Goldie knew he was being pursued by the Indians so he headed for a dense forest near the Caney River. Here he picked a spot between two large trees growing from the same trunk and buried the gold. Captain Goldie could see Artillery Mound to the north from between the two trees and as an added measure he placed a musket in another tree located between the old California Trail and the Caney River. Then he took off to save his own hide.

Captain Goldie died in Missouri without recovering his gold but his wife came to the area some twenty years later and tried to make a recovery. The landowner at the time, Joe Boulanger, remembered finding an old musket in a tree but apparently all of the searching for this gold failed. Most of the trees had been cut down when Goldie’s wife came to the area but maybe with a good detector, some more research and some luck this cache could be found.

In 1892 the “Doolin” gang robbed the Missouri-Kansas and Texas passenger train at Adair, Oklahoma. The gang made off with $30,000 in gold coins. It was thought that the gang headed for what was Gray Horse, now a ghost town. After the outlaws divided up their spoils it is said each of the outlaws buried their own cache in their own special spot near the town. All of the members of this gang were reportedly killed four months later in an attempted robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas and the $30,000 in gold was never recovered. You can find Gray Horse by looking eight miles south and fourteen miles west of Pawhuska or one mile south and three miles east of Fairfax.

In Murray County, Oklahoma there is said to be a massive Spanish treasure of gold weighing 3,900 pounds! This treasure is said to be located in a “labyrinth” of tunnels and passages seven miles west of Davis, Oklahoma. A copper plate was found with a map etched on it and the map indicates that jewels, church plate and gold are hidden somewhere inside the tunnels. The tunnels are supposed to be part of a large mine that was being worked by the Spanish. No treasure has been reported found from these tunnels and it is said not all of the tunnels have been explored.

Three thousand, nine hundred pounds of gold, at todays gas prices you could almost retire on that!

There was an outlaw by the name of Al Spencer who apparently had accumulated over $100,000 dollars during his carrier in the 1920s but never lived to spend it all. Al Spencer was shot dead in 1923. He was known to have cached some of his spoils in a wooded area in Oklahoma just two miles southwest of Caney, Kansas. Al Spencer was also known to have several other hideouts in the Osage Hills and it was thought that Mr. Spencer hid some of his loot at each of these campsites.

In Pontotoc County, Oklahoma there is said to be a Spanish treasure worth more than thirty million dollars. Spanish mission treasure was stored underneath a church located about half way between Ada and Stonewall. It is said that the padres of the church dug a shaft under the church and stored the treasure there. In 1758 the padres at this mission had heard that the San Saba Mission in Texas had been overrun by hostile Indians and burned to the ground.

Fearing the worst, the padres at the mission in Oklahoma filled in the shaft, covering the treasure, and left markers in the area so that it could be recovered at a later date. As with a lot of Spanish treasure; they apparently never got back to recover it.

I didn’t do any research to locate this mission although I might in the future. Oklahoma did fall into the territory claimed by Spain. The “Great Spanish Road to Red River” extended from Santa Fe to the mouth of the Washita River. The road crossed the Texas Panhandle and entered Oklahoma at the 100th meridian near the north fork of the Red River. The road crossed the North Fork of the Red River twice and followed the main stream along the left bank to the Washita River. I know the Spanish made it as far north as Kansas and it would make sense that they might establish a mission in the southern part of Oklahoma, fairly close to the Texas border.

I will leave this story here. Let me know if you need any help in digging out that shaft!

Jesse James Rides Again

Those who read what I post on the treasure forums already know that I don't believe J Frank Dalton was really Jesse James. There is just too much information that would prove he was just another imposter. With all that said, he did pull off one of the greatest hoaxes I have ever seen. To this day some people still believe he was really Jesse.

My partners and I acquired original 1948 copies of Jesse James Rides Again. These booklets came from the estate of one of the authors. This is the first published book detailing J Frank Daltons story. Frank Hall and lindsey Whitten broke the story to the world on May 19th 1948 in the Lawton Constitution. The story gained the attention of the nation.

The book is eight chapters and 48 pages long. It has a number of pictures including one picture that shows Dalton's left hand and a black fingernail that is supposed to be proof he was Jesse. It also shows the famous brass bucket with it's outlaw contract.

While I doubt this book or any other information that came from Dalton or Howk will help you find treasure, it still is an interesting book to read. We have a large number of these books left that we are selling for $20 and that price now includes the shipping. Many of these copies are like new. If you're interested in a copy you can e-mail me at okietreasurehunter@msn.com for details. I'm constantly researching information concerning this great saga, so look for future postings concerning Dalton/Howk.