State Treasure - Kansas

Blood Money Lost
CHEROKEE COUNTY – During September 1897, newspaper headlines across the country left Americans stunned, so the murder of Kansas peddler Frank Galbraith was hardly sensational news.
Charged with Galbraith’s murder was Nancy Wilson, aka: Mrs. George Wilson, or “Ma Steffleback,” and her three sons George, Edward, and Mike. The family ran a boarding house near Galena.
A short time after the family was lodged in the jail at Columbus, Mike Staffleback was charged with three additional murders in an unrelated case, and that sparked people’s interest.
Lurid headlines revealed gruesome details, threats of vigilante justice loomed, and Kansas residents recalled the horror of 25 years earlier and prayed this wasn’t another Bender case.
The Bender family in 1873 was discovered to be… The Keeper’s of Satan’s Inn. Located on the Osage Trail, the modest Bender Store & Inn served as the lone outpost of civilization on this stretch of hot, desolate, treeless prairie in southeast Kansas.
From 1871 – 1873, scores of men fitting a specific description were reported as missing from the Osage Trail after having last been seen in the Big Hill Country.
Tipped off that Osage constable LeRoy Dick and Colonel Ed York intended to solicit the court for a search warrant for all homesteads between the headwaters of Big Hill Creek and Drum Creek, the Bender’s fled.
Constable Dick, Col. York, and posse members from Montgomery and Labette Counties executed the warrant, arriving at the deserted Bender homestead on May 7, 1873.
There lawmen began their gristly task of unearthing the victims. None of the Bender family was ever apprehended or charged.
Kansas residents found it difficult to believe that, for the second time in 25 years, the unthinkable had happened. In the days to follow, as authorities continued to recover corpse after corpse from the bottom of old mine shafts, it became clear.
Ma Staffelback and her brood, much like the Bender family, were discovered running Kansas’ second human slaughterhouse disguised to look like a humble country Inn.
The Bender family was a member of a religious cult that forbade liquor; Ma believed by adding booze and broads to the Bender’s original scheme, she had a full-proof business plan.
She kept a variety of working girls on hand to provide entertainment, and was always well stocked with a supply of liquor.
During the evening, Ma invited her “selected male guests” into the parlor where she raised a toast in their honor.
Next she offered to make them comfortable on the sofa where the men were told to take their time getting to know the girls.
Ma’s girls knew the drill. Their job was to keep her guests distracted and plied with liquor.
With her guests busy sizing up and scrutinizing the stock, one of Ma’s boys would quietly sneak up behind with an axe.
Hidden by a curtain hung to prevent the victims from seeing behind the sofa, a single strike from the axe to the skull quickly and quietly resulted in instant death.
After looting anything of value, the victim’s body was removed from the house under the cover of darkness and dumped into any one of several abandoned mineshafts nearby.
After getting into it with one of her working gals, the tart stormed out of the Inn in a huff and angrily reported Ma’s murderous misdeeds to lawmen.
The Stafflebacks were arrested as officers searched the boarding house.
Nothing incriminating was found there so lawmen searched the many abandoned mineshafts in the area.
All four of the Stafflebacks were convicted of murder. Sentenced to life in the Woman’s Prison at Lansing, Kansas, Ma worked like all inmates from sunup to sundown.
Officials estimated she’d stashed away about $50,000 in stolen money and jewelry somewhere near her cursed boarding house.
Though she admitted nothing during her trial, authorities fully expected Ma to break and give up the stolen goods while in prison in exchange for a deal.
Twelve years later, in March 1909, Warden W. H. Haskell received word that Ma Staffleback had died, taking her dark secrets with her to hell.
Hundreds have sought the treasure that still remains unaccounted for.
Most searchers believe that, because the Staffleback victims were discovered in old, abandoned, water filled mineshafts, that’s where she would’ve also hidden the loot, but not a single coin or jewelry was ever found.
Ma was smart; she knew if her operation was exposed she might have to flee suddenly to avoid arrest, therefore it is unlikely she would’ve hidden the booty in a water-filled mine shaft.
No, she hid her treasure somewhere where she could quickly lay her hands on it at a moment’s notice and run.
But she never got the chance.
Wherever she hid the cache, it’s probably still there today.Ghost Town:
Richmond’s Lost Cache
(NEMAHA COUNTY) – The ghost town of Richmond (not to be confused with Richmond in Franklin County) sprang up on the California Trail at the ford of the Nemaha River.
Though nothing remains of Richmond today, a story involving a sizeable quantity of lost gold is linked to the forgotten town.
Two Boston men were returning to Massachusetts on the California Trail in 1854 after having spent years in California during the Gold Rush.
Concealed inside a powder can carried among their belongings in their wagon was $85,000 in California gold dust.
Late one afternoon, the men arrived on the west bank of the Nemaha River and set up camp.
Richmond, in plain view from the opposite bank, the village sat about 250 yards further.
After dark, they buried their gold, digging the cache hole “across from the big tree on the west bank of the Nemaha in direct line with the rays of light shining from the window of the saloon to the place of deposit.”
Next they drove into Richmond to pick up provisions at the combination store and saloon.
They purchased supplies and were carrying them out to the wagon when two drunken men stumbled into the store from the back room that housed the saloon and gambling tables.
These “ruffians” immediately became aggressive and confrontational with the Massachusetts boys, who aptly responded with an impromptu beat-down, during which one drunk pulled his revolver and fired, killing outright one of the Bostonian prospectors.
Suddenly the lights went out inside the store and the surviving prospector took to flight.
Landing in his wagon, he whipped the team into a dead eastbound run into the dark, never bothering to look back.
In his wake he left behind the supplies and everything in camp, including the gold.
On returning to Boston, he married his dead partner’s sister and settled down, promising to retrieve their gold in due time.
With the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted, leaving his wife and two infant sons a treasure map to the gold cache.
Killed in action, she reared the boys to manhood before telling them of the treasure map.
About 30 years after the murder – attempted robbery at Richmond, his two grown sons appeared in Seneca one day and learned from old timers that Richmond was gone.
Deserted long ago, nothing remained.
When they arrived at Richmond, an old well was the only landmark identifying the old town site.
The timber had been stripped from the land and floods had dramatically altered the landscape, making the map nearly useless.
They could only approximate where the original ford had been and spent weeks camped there using bayonets to probe the ground.
Finally, they gave up and returned home empty handed.Lost & Forgotten Kansas Sites
Ghost Town: Covert – (OSBORNE COUNTY)- Founded in 1880, Covert was always a small community that served as a service center for the farms and ranches in south central Osborne County.
Its peak population reached 150 and the village survived until the Post Office closed in 1966.
About six original buildings remain, as does the cemetery.
Located on South 160th Avenue at County Road 404, 12.5 miles southwest of Osborne.Fort Defiance – (DOUGLAS COUNTY) – This is a lost American fort that existed from 1855-1861 and was abandoned before the Civil War began. Thought to be somewhere along the Wakarusa River.Fort Bain – (BOURBON COUNTY) – Fort Bain was built by Free-Staters on the north side of the Little Osage River about one mile west of Fulton. It operated from 1857-1858.Sources:
Townsend, Ben, “Ma Staffleback’s Hidden Treasure,” July 1975, Lost Treasure Magazine, p. 15
Hudson, Cullan, Strange State Blogspot, http://strangestate.blogspot.com/2010/12/kansas-other-notorious-killing-clan.html
Hidden & Lost Gold / Silver in Kansas, http://www.gwizit.com/kansas.php
W.F. Thompson, Tell Story of Buried Gold at Richmond, http://seneca-ks.com/book2/nemaha_gold.htm
Covert – Ghost Town, http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ks/covert.html
American Forts: Kansas, http://www.northamericanforts.com/West/ks.html