In Arizona, a quixotic search for a fabled gold mine

Joe Duhownik

APACHE JUNCTION, Ariz. (CN) — As Jacob Waltz lay dying in his Phoenix home in 1891, he shared a secret with two friends.

The German immigrant told them he’d found a gold mine hidden deep in Arizona’s Superstition mountains, a massive deposit of riches that had sustained him for decades.

So goes the legend, at least. In more than a century of searching, none have found the fabled Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine — though more than 30 people have died exploring the 160,000-acre Superstition Wilderness Area in hopes of making it rich.

Even today, the search continues. Each October, members of the Dons of Arizona, keepers of Arizona legends, gather for the Dutch Hunter Rendezvous. They share stories of the mountains and keep the hunt alive.

The tradition speaks of the kind of magical thinking that has in some ways always defined the U.S. Southwest. While it may have faded since the days of prospectors and saloon shootouts, it never fully went away.

One thing’s for sure: Jacob Waltz did exist. He has a gravestone. He shows up in voting and citizenship records from Los Angeles County.

After making his way to Phoenix, Waltz apparently lived in a two-room adobe house on the edge of the young town. His name appears in local newspapers in two instances, both times as a bystander to crimes.

Still, scholars disagree on the line between fact and fiction. According to some accounts, townsfolk later recalled seeing Waltz come into town with large quantities of 18-karat gold, living off it for about a year before venturing back into the mountains.

After walking into a store, “he would reach into a bag, pull out some of the finest gold, and sometimes even [exceed] the cost of what he was buying,” said Steve Campbell, a historian and volunteer at the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum. Then again, maybe that’s just another part of the legend.

Echoing stories told about Waltz in this Phoenix suburb just west of the Superstitions, Campbell said Waltz found his secret mine while prospecting with the Peraltas, a family of Spanish settlers.

As the group searched for sacred gold, Waltz offered the family protection from Apaches looking to guard it. But when they did ultimately find the legendary deposit, Waltz turned to betrayal. He killed the four Peraltas, keeping the mine’s location a secret even after he died.

Historian Wayne Tuttle, producer of the History Channel series “Chasing Legends,” isn’t so sure about this. If Waltz regularly came into Phoenix with large quantities of gold, such events surely would have made the small town’s local paper.

There are no such historical news articles. “Nobody seemed to know him when he died,” Tuttle said, “but within a few years, everyone was his friend.”

“He’s a very real person, but he didn’t murder people. He wasn’t a recluse,” he added. “He was the normal elderly guy in the neighborhood. Nobody thought much of him.”

Whatever the case, the legend of Jacob Waltz is emblematic of the kinds of stories that have long emanated from the American West in visions of get-rich-quick glory. Since the 1800s, European settlers have come to the rugged, barren mountains here in hopes of striking gold. Typically, they left disappointed.

But while Anglo settlers may have viewed this as a magical, empty land, Indigenous people have in fact lived here for thousands of years. Many Wild West legends (not just those about Waltz) feature vengeful Native Americans fighting tooth and nail to keep white people from discovering sacred secrets. Like the stories of Waltz and his gold, those accounts err more on the side of fiction.

Sometimes, stories of Jacob Waltz and his fabled mine have blended together with other tall tales.

The notoriety of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine exploded tenfold in 1931 with the death of prospector Adolph Ruth. His skull was found in the Superstition Mountains with two holes in it nearly a mile away from the rest of his body.

The story gripped the nation in the days when the rugged Western frontier was fading from public memory. And the violent nature of Ruth’s death fed into narratives of vengeful tribal members protecting sacred land.

In the case of Waltz and his mine, many storytellers have written about the Apache Thunder God, who supposedly safeguarded gold in the mountains. Campbell, of the Superstition Mountain Lost Dutchman Museum, said Tonto Apaches regularly attacked Waltz and other prospectors to protect the Thunder God’s gold.

Like much of the Jacob Waltz story, rumors of the Thunder God appear to be just that. When asked about the Thunder God, White Mountain Apache Cultural Director Ramon Riley laughed.

“The God of Thunder?” he asked. “That’s funny. Somebody else who’s not Apache probably made that up.”

Regardless, Riley said it was taboo to own gold in Apache culture.

“Apaches had no use for gold. They knew it was evil,” he said.

Before the Apaches, many bands of Yavapai moved in and out of the vast mountain range.

Clissene Lewis, cultural development director of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, likewise scoffed at the Thunder God.

“We all believe in one God,” she said. “[I] don’t know where that one came from.”

It probably came from a mistranslation, said Apache Junction Mayor Chip Wilson.

Settlers may have heard that Apaches prayed to God up in the mountains. They noticed how Indigenous people in the region looked at the thunderstorms with awe. That could have led them to mistakenly believe there was a Thunder God in the Apache faith.

"It’s the white man’s interpretation,” as Wilson puts it — one with little connection to actual Indigenous practices and beliefs.

Maybe stories like this are yet another example of how American settlers projected their own fantasies onto Indigenous Americans. Faced with a rugged frontier, they created their own lore rather than listening to those who were already here.

Or maybe there’s something about the American Southwest that draws in dreamers. After all, the Thunder God is hardly the only supernatural theory surrounding this desolate mountain range.

Searchers of the Lost Dutchman’s mine also recount tales of aliens, lizard people and even a community of little people that supposedly lives in the Superstitions. Campbell swears he’s seen both a ghost and a UFO while out hunting for gold of his own. He says he’s found gold as well, none of it matching what the Dutchman is said to have found.

Even skeptics can get caught up in the fantasies. Mayor Wilson believes none of these stories — but he still can’t shake an experience he had not long ago. While hiking through the mountains, he heard a loud and sudden whistling noise. It was “like a scream,” he said.

It wasn’t windy that day. While he’s sure there's an explanation, he can’t think of one.

“Our minds create things that our minds want to believe,” he said. With a hint of irony, he recalls telling friends about how “we heard the mountain gods speak to us.”

Tuttle, the History Channel historian, attributes any supernatural ideation to the isolation of the Superstitions.

“The mountains seclude you and they change your perspective,” he said. “If you’re a fearful person, it makes you more insecure.”

Still, Tuttle said such stories should be treated the same way as the fables of Waltz’s mine — tall tales spun by storytellers looking to increase entertainment and a tourism industry looking to boost profits.

“Jacob Waltz wouldn’t even know himself at this point,” he said.

Rising sharply from the flat Sonoran Desert, the Superstition Mountains tower over the Phoenix metro area.

The mountains are unforgiving, featuring nearly 250 square miles of rugged terrain with little shade and no water for most of the year. And yet supposedly, the Lost Dutchman was able to traverse these mountains and find treasure no one else could — even if he had to kill a few Apaches and Spanish miners along the way.

Maybe the story of Jacob Waltz is just fiction. But like all fiction, it has at least a shred of truth to it. Gold has indeed been found in and around the Superstitions, including in more than a dozen mines in the Goldfield Mining District in its foothills.

Donald Burt, a geology professor at Arizona State University, said he’s fielded questions from reporters about the lost mine for 50 years.

“There might be gold in the Superstitions,” he said in an email. “I have no idea if the Lost Dutchman exists.”

Some say Waltz drew a map to the mine before he died. The purported map was later sold for $7.

“That map has never been found,” said Wilson, the Apache Junction mayor. In his three decades in the Phoenix suburb, he’s encountered countless people who are sure they will finally crack the puzzle. To date, no one has.

While the legitimacy of Jacob Waltz tales remains shaky at best, the mysterious German immigrant nonetheless lives on as an icon of the Wild West. His actual remains rest in the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park Cemetery in west Phoenix.

Near Apache Junction, in the unincorporated community of Tortilla Flat, an old wooden sign marks what was once the Dutchman’s Inn. Supposedly — and erroneously — it was Waltz who founded this restaurant. Multiple historical markers around the Superstitions honor him as a trailblazer, inspiring thousands to travel west in search of fortune. But those who do search for his fabled treasure should take heed: While the Thunder God will not kill them, false hope and the unforgiving desert just might.