Replies

I'll get you some fresh pics when I get home.

Did you see the pic of the dam?

Interesting story there. The Spaniards were mining the mountains for gold adjacent to the dam in the 1700s, and were traveling south periodically with 100 mule teams laden with gold. When they were between teams, they would cache the gold in the ground (Question: How many pounds of gold can 100 mules carry?)

One of the back hoe workers hit one of those caches, filled up the bed of his pickup with the ingots, (5 lbs each) and disappeared off the face of the earth. I heard this story in 1990, right after becoming involved in a ranch nearby.

In 2004 I heard the finale -- someone from the ranch was visiting the Carribean, and happened to meet the fellow in a bar, recognized him, and asked what had happened -- big surprise to find him alive and obviously well. The fellow now has a big spread on an island there, living out the rest of his natural life in ease.

You can still find ingots in the mountains there, on old mule trails where they fell out of the bags and landed on the ground. I have heard of 2 such finds.

The mine itself -- That is shrouded in secrecy. Brigham Young contacted the Ute Indians for permission to extract 100,000 ounces of gold, enough to setup the Mormon mint in SLC, that produced gold coins from 1849 on, for the settlers to do commerce. The gold covered Moroni statue on the temple in SLC, that really is a gold covered statue.

When Brigham had his 100,000 ounces, the Indians sealed the mine, and to this day it has never reopened. It is on tribal lands up there. I talked to one party that searched on Tribal lands for other caches like the one found, and they apparently located a second but were not allowed to dig it up. Now the Indians keep armed patrols up the canyons and on the mountain tops, and I have encountered them. They move you along and escort you back to public roads if you are off them.

Apparently the elders won't tell the young bucks where the sealed entrance is, or so the story goes. Brigham left a cannon up there, and it was possible to find it through the 1990's, but I suspect it has been moved by now.