Did you find what you were looking for prospector?
The deserts of the American southwest have long been the discussion of lost mines and buried treasures. For hundreds of years, man has scoured the desert floor searching for any signs of the countless tales of lost riches. Some have claimed to have found the elusive treasures but only to be lost again, while others grew old or died trying. None the less, the legends live on as they are passed down from generation to generation. Maybe you will be the lucky one...
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Vallecito Gold
Do you believe in ghosts? If you do, searching
for treasures in the vicinity of California old Vallecito Stage Station
should be right up your alley, for the area boasts of a phantom stage
coach, an ethereal white horse and other assorted supernatural spirits.
By Howard M. Duffy
From page 8 of the March
1995 issue of Lost Treasure magazine.
Copyright ©1995, 1999 Lost Treasure, Inc.
Located in San Diego County, the stage
station never expected to become the hub of several treasure tales
and the habitat of spirits of the netherworld, when stages of the
Butterfield Overland Mail began operations on September 15, 1858.
As for the first apparition associated
with the Vallecito Station, it was reported to have a phantom stage
coach drawn by a four-mule team, en route from Carrizo to Vallecito.
An old desert prospector, "Mac" McCloud, alleged he had
first seen the phantom stage in the mid-1890s. He said it appeared
in the night with the usual clatter of an old stage, then faded away
in the dark just as suddenly as it had arrived. McCloud added that
it must have been a phantom, for there hadn't been a stage like that
through there for 20 years. A stage with a ghostly driver? True? We
don't know. Perhaps old Mac had been too long in the torrid desert
sun.
On the other hand, there is a legend of
a stage being lost in the area during the 1860s. It was said to have
come out of El Paso, bound for San Diego. There were no passengers
-- just a driver, a guard and a heavy box of coins. On the journey
the guard became ill and had to leave the stage at Yuma, with the
driver to continue alone.
Philip A. Bailey in his highly interesting
book, Golden Mirages, wrote of this coach: "Somewhere around
where the road slides into Carrizo Wash, not more than five miles
between the Fish and Coyotes, the stage was held up, and the drive
was shot. The money-box was taken up into a canyon on the south slope
of Fish Mountain and buried, and it's rumored that it was never taken
away, because there was too many soldiers moving on the trail."
Old-timers have often associated the lost coach with that of McCloud's
phantom. Strange things happen in the desert!
Still in the realm of "phantasmagoria,"
as Edgar Allen Poe might have said, was an incident at Vallecito Wash,
involving another stage coach heist. In this episode four mounted
men emerged from a clump of bushes and stuck up one of the Butterfield
coaches. It carried $65,000 in gold in an iron chest. At the command
of the bandit leader, O'Hara, who was mounted on a white horse, the
stage driver lowered the strong-box to the ground.
At that, the bandits scooped up the chest,
wheeled their mounts and began to dash away. In the excitement of
the heist the outlaws overlooked the fact that the driver had a rifle
beside his seat. As the bandits fled, the man sighted his rifle to
fire one shot, which sent an outlaw toppling from his horse. When
the driver went to investigate, he discovered two dead men, not one
-- although he had fired but a single shot!
Following this robbery, the two remaining
bandits galloped to Vallecito Station. The station keeper later told
how O'Hara produced a bottle of whiskey from which the pair of bandits
drank freely. Soon a quarrel developed, with O'Hara's companion accusing
the leader of having shot the second dead robber so that the loot,
safely buried along the trail, would not have to be divided four ways.
At this point, O'Hara broke off the argument, saying he had to care
for his horse.
A few minutes later, the leader returned
on his white horse. As he kicked in the station's door, he fired his
pistol to wound the other bandit in the chest. As the wounded man
lay dying, he reached for his gun to kill O'Hara with a shot behind
the right ear. The result of all this uproar left a robbed stage coach,
a buried chest of gold, four dead bandits and a roving white horse.
Old prospectors in the area claim that
the ghost of this white horse will appear at midnight at the treasure
cache, accompanied by a blast of cold air. So, if these conditions
prevail, as you prowl the trail in the middle of the night, hurry
for your pick and shovel, for you are standing at "X marks the
spot."
Vallecito was not the only stop on the
Butterfield line to harbor a ghost. Indeed, the stage station at San
Felipe, about 14 miles northwest of Vallecito, also boasts of a ghostly
apparition. Thomas Penfield in his book, A Guide to Treasure in California,
wrote, "Two prospectors waited here for a stage one night, hardly
concealing the fact that they had just struck it rich and had a fortune
of gold with them. A lone bandit suddenly entered the little adobe
station, seized the gold and left. Recognizing the bandit, the station
keeper went to the door and called him by name. There was no answer,
and the keeper returned to the station. Minutes later, the bandit
reappeared, ordered the station keeper to procure a shovel and start
digging his own grave. Waiting hi chance, the station keeper swung
at the bandit's head with the shovel, dealing him a fatal blow, but
as he was falling the outlaw fired, killing his opponent. Because
the prospector's gold could not be found after the killings, it is
presumed the bandit took it some distance away and buried it before
returning to kill the station keeper."
The historian Bailey said this episode
happened on a moonlit night of October in the late 1850s. Local residents
have embellished it by adding that -- about midnight of each anniversary
of the killings -- one can hear the shouts of the two adversaries,
and see the shovel swing for an instant, just before the moon disappears
under a cloud. They claim. too, there is a curse on the hidden gold,
and it can never be found. Who knows?
Not all treasure caches in the Vallecito
area are guarded by ghostly phantoms. Some are just plain lost. Take
the case of a band of Mexicans, who once made a stop at the stage
station. They were carrying some $80,000 in gold stolen in raids along
the California coast. Fearing they might possibly be overtaken by
a posse or other bandits, their leader, that same night, buried the
loot in a nearby canyon for safekeeping until morning. Nevertheless,
their worst fears materialized when the leader was ambushed by a posse
and killed. His henchmen scattered to make their respective ways back
to Mexico, leaving the gold unfound to this day.
If you wish to venture into the Vallecito
Mountains, north of the old stage station, you might be fortunate
enough to discover a treasure vault originally found by a prospector
called Sonora Joe.
Around 1870, Sonora Joe was prospecting
in the Vallecito Mountains, when he encountered a difficult situation.
His mule fell into a deep crevasse, breaking its leg. So, the prospector
was force to shoot the animal and proceed on foot. The following day
he came upon a steep canyon, entering eastward into the desert. As
Joe sat on its crest, taking a drink from his canteen, it slipped
from his grasp to go bouncing down the rocky cliff.
There was no alternative but to climb down
into the canyon, hoping the canteen had not been punctured as it bounced
off the sharp rocks. Reaching the canteen at the bottom of the canyon,
Joe's worst fears were realized -- it was punctured and empty of water.
A lesser man would have been completely discouraged, but Joe, climbing
up the canyon's wall, discovered a seepage of water trickling from
under a rock ledge. Plugging the hole in the canteen with a piece
of material from his shirt, he was able to refill it from his fortunate
discovery.
In addition to finding this meager water
source, the prospector was amazed to discover a higher interesting
outcropping of quartz. As he pried loose several pieces of quartz,
the rocks gave way, exposing a dark cavern. Enlarging the entrance,
Joe crawled through to find himself in a circular vault. Its walls
were rough stones placed there by human hands and a large slab formed
a roof.
Carrying a few small samples of quartz,
Joe trudged westward to the tiny settlement of Banner, where he worked
at odd jobs to accumulate a grubstake, with supplies and a mule the
prospector eventually returned to the canyon in the Vallecitos. When
his mule was loaded to capacity , Joe once more headed to Banner.
On the trail he stopped at Vallecito Station to chat with an old friend
and confide the secret of his amazing luck. In fact, he told how the
mysterious vault had also contained a strong-box similar to the type
carried by coaches. This box had contained smelted slugs of gold and
some documents, the latter being discarded by Joe.
After bidding his friend good-bye, Sonora
Joe hit the trail for Banner. However -- he never reached his destination!
According to the San Diego Tribune of September 2, 1936, "Years
later the Indians said some other Indians had killed him for his gold
and buried his body. Then fearing discovery had buried the gold and
never recovered it."
Since 1934, the Vallecito Stage Station
has been restored and the site converted to a county park. There may
be restrictions concerning the use of metal detectors within the park,
however most of the treasure sites we have mentioned are outside its
boundaries.
Yes, Vallecito and its locale are rich
in treasure stories. If you do not fear ghosts, spirits and assorted
supernatural phenomena, the area is well worth a search. Fortunately,
these ghosts have never harmed anyone.
- Howard M. Duffy
