Stories of buried treasure and lost mines have consumed a certain type of personality for untold thousands of years. You could call these sorts gamblers, or maybe even dreamers. Whether gold or silver, coins, veins or bars, there is always a story, however likely, or unlikely it might be, that is told in different versions, generally over centuries, and there are always those who will believe. Not only do lost treasure stories capture the imagination, they tend to expose the historical roots of a location like no other medium.

I’m writing this from a place in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. Legends abound here about the supposedly cursed Lost Dutchman Mine. The tales about this infamous mine and its curse on treasure hunters that seek it, create what is probably the most famous lost gold story in the world. The extreme cases of gold fever this mine has engendered are still legion here, after 150 years of supposedly fruitless searching. Below us is a campground full of gold hunters. Many live here year round out of campers and tents. One of these guys has been hunting the Lost Dutchman for 45 years.That’s a true believer.

Indian mythology, Spanish explorers, cursed adventurers and more are common elements that weave their way through nearly all treasure stories. The stories abound not only in Arizona, but back home in our area of Texas as well. Interestingly, our tales contain similar elements as the Lost Dutchman lore. Spanish conquistadors make an appearance, along with Indian legends. We even have our own curse! Lost coins in Brownwood, buried Spanish treasure on Santa Anna Mountain, and, of course, the great legend of the Lost San Saba Mine provoke searchers to voyage deep into the earliest history of an area, which I think adds to their value. Naturally in these cases, rumor abounds, as it does in all good treasure tales, but facts abound as well, and it is an actual fact that a stash of buried gold was found near Brownwood.

The Brownwood find was documented in a 1907 edition of The Shiner Gazette, uncovered by local historian, and, not coincidentally I believe, President of the Central Texas Treasure Club, Jay Longley. A Mr. W.T Meade of Brown County dug up an old iron kettle that contained what was estimated to be 1,500–2,000 dollars worth of gold coins. The coins were reportedly buried by what the article calls ‘Spanish refugees’. Carved marker stones were decoded, along with trees bearing ‘hieroglyphics’, which ostensibly guided Meade to the hidden stash. Meade spent years searching before hitting the literal jackpot. I suspect that like many who catch gold fever, Meade faced his share of naysayers and skeptics, yet in the end he was vindicated, finding what was, at the time, a virtual fortune underneath an old live oak tree.

Another local treasure tale comes from the Santa Anna Mountains, where it is rumored a group of Spanish soldiers, fleeing a band of Indians whom they had robbed of 50 pounds of gold and some dust, buried their stash somewhere on the mountain. “A month after their assault on the Indian village, they were camped for the night on a little creek not far from what are now called the Santa Anna Mountains in Coleman County. A lookout who had been dispatched in the late afternoon to make observation from the nearest mountain had not returned. At dark all fires were extinguished and the camp waited. Some time before midnight, the lookout dashed in to report that a large band of Indians was advancing within a few miles. The commander of the expedition ordered his men to entrench themselves as best they could and to maintain silence. With them was a very strong man who had acted as a kind of guide. He was well able to dig a hole for the gold, and he was detailed with some of the exhausted Spaniards to hide the treasure. They buried it on top of a hill, under a flat rock on which they carved three M’s. It is estimated that pure ore to the value of about ten thousand pesos was buried,” reads a story found in the book Legends of Texas, by University of North Texas Press. This treasure, to my knowledge, has never been found. The sheer amount of rattlesnakes up there make it seem likely it never will be.

Many treasure hunters have tried and failed, but occasionally there is a success story. I figure maybe I even have a shot. A middle-aged mom with back problems and a healthy fear of snakes and heat can’t do much more than look out the window at the aptly named Superstitions, where nearly 40 gold hunters have gone out to find the lode and never returned. I can, however, read and dream, like all treasure seekers do and have done since about the beginning of time. Maybe in the fall, up in the hills of Central Texas somewhere, with what is probably a fake map from an old J. Frank Dobie book on treasure hunting in Texas, I could light on some buried treasure. Who knows, maybe reading and learning about these things, and exploring back roads in search of possibilities is, in reality, its own form of treasure?

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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns and articles appear periodically on BrownwoodNews.com