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Where is the lost treasure of the Death Valley mine?
In 1850, a group of emigrants was headed to
California’s gold country with Captain Jefferson Hunt in the lead. They camped
at White Sage Flat, which is just a bit west of Death Valley. When they first
left, there were 107 wagons in search of their fortune headed to California. Of
course, with this many people they are always different opinions as to the best
route to take even if Captain Hunt had traveled this area and taken others to
California.
As the legend goes, November 1, 1849 was the day
that the 107 wagons were split into different routes. From the larger group,
other groups decided to go off on their own in the search of a shorter route.
The groups were the Bennett-Arcane party, the Brier and Wade families, the
Georgia-Mississippi party led by Captain Towne and Jim Martin, and the
Jayhawkers.
The Georgia-Mississippi party hiked over the
Panamints and wandered through the cold countryside until they reached White
Sage Flat and made a camp. The Jayhawkers and Briers left and went their own way
and arrived at White Sage Flat one day after the Georgia-Mississippi party. When
they arrived, they saw Captain Towne carving a new gunsight for his rifle. The
gunsight he was carvings was from pure silver! The Georgia-Mississippi party
told the tale of silver ore that just below their camp on top of a mesa. As the
tale goes, the silver ore covered the top of the mesa.
However, since it was winter and supplies were
running so low, finding food and shelter from the harsh winter was more
important at the time than any silver mine, so they traveled onward to their
original destination. After traveling nearly a month more, they finally made it
to Mariposa, which was at the southern end of the gold country. Here many of the
emigrants began a new life, however, some could not shake the thoughts of the
silver covering the mesa top.
Not long after the emigrants began their new lives,
one of the Georgia-Mississippi party, Mr. Turner went in search of the silver.
He could never find the mesa with all the silver ore. He gathered a group
together and in September 1850, went in search of the silver ore once again.
This time, they did find remains of old campfires and even cattle bones, but by
this time, supplies were almost gone so they had to return home.
There are different versions of this tale according
to which member of the parties you are talking with, however, they all claim the
silver ore is there, the only difference is which party was responsible for
finding the mine in the beginning. The silver ore is still there hidden away for
only the lucky to find.
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