High-Grader's Missing Cache

Back in the early days of this century, gold and silver were still being taken out of mines around Creede, Silverton and Telluride, Colorado. High grading (a fancy name for stealing) was not considered a sin unless you were caught.

This explains how some of the richest gold ore ever taken out of the Colorado Rockies - ore valued at $120,000 on today's market -came to be cached at a place called Indian Ridge near the little town of Rico, Colorado.

Two men and a boy buried the ore one summer around 1910 and were never able to find it again. The two men were miners and the boy was a sheepherder, but he was important to the operation because he provided the mules to carry the 12 sacks of ore which weighed about 70 pounds apiece.