A Guide to Treasure in Arizona

This book is available in DIGITAL format ONLY, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Excerpt from 'A Guide to Treasure in Arizona'

The search for gold—and treasure—has been going on in Arizona since the first white men came to the region. In 1539 Fray Marcos de Niza was sent from Mexico to check reports of large cities and much wealth in precious metals and stones in the land to the north. He returned with glowing accounts of the Seven Cities of Cibola. What he saw, and only from a distance, were the Zuni pueblas of Hawikuh, but his story was enough to attract a horde of other treasure seekers to the land, notably Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.
Following in the footsteps of the swashbuckling conquistadores, Jesuit priests entered Arizona, introducing to the natives such modern amenities as cattle, housing and cultivated crops along with religion. In return, the friendly natives showed the padres where there were rich deposits of gold and silver. With the help of their Indian neophytes, these precious metals were mined by the padres and brought to camps and missions to be hidden away for safekeeping until they could be transported to Mexico and hence to Spain.
But not all of the Indian tribes in Arizona were friendly. This was specially true of the Apaches, who fiercely resented the white man's intrusion upon their lands. Many of the mining camps and missions were attacked by the Apaches, who frequently killed all occupants and destroyed both campsite and mission site. Such was the case of the Escalante Mine, the famous "Mine With the Iron Door." It was discovered by Indians in 1689 and worked for many years by Father Escalante's charges. When Apaches attacked the camp and annihilated its workers, they obliterated all traces of the mine and the camp. Neither have been found to this day. Repeated over and over, these acts left Arizona with an intriguing and confusing legacy of lost mission treasures and lost mines.