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Treasure in Western  Wyoming & Northwest Colorado
The following tales was related to Rick Mattingly by Stanley Meager of northwestern Colorado some years ago.
E
sther Campbell told me this story. She and her husband Duward (spelling) lived in the May Bell area and wanted to move to Browns Park and run some cattle. They had heard of some property being for sale on Douglas Mountain and rode their horses over to talk to the man. It was a three day ride and when they  got there no one would talk to them (Later she found out people thought they were from the FBI). They finally lo-cated the man (this about 1930) in Indian Canyon on Douglas Mountain. but he was not home. They went in to wait for him. It was a cabin built against the cliff with a bedroom in the back. They looked in and saw the mans bed was made from old train mail sacks. They thought him to be some kind of outlaw and left. Later they made contact with him and bought the ranch, in a very remote area (On a recent trip, it took me two hours with 4WD after leaving the main road to get in to the canyon). When they went back, the bed of mail sacks  was gone. He came back several months later with pack horses and stayed several days. When he left, he left  with a lot more than he came with and she saw a box of  jewelry he had among his things. Some years later, when she was teaching school, an art professor from Denver came to spend the summer with them. He would go out and sit on rocks and draw. This  was during the war and sugar was scarce. One day he  was at the table and mentioned to them about the bar-rels and boxes they had stored in a cave out back of the
(Continued on page 3)
 v. 15, n. 11 November, 2011 Going for the Gold
Rocky Mountain Prospectors Treasure Hunters Newsletter
 
The News
Visit RMPTH On The Internet At http://rmpth.com
Contents
"It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech." - Mark Twain
1 Treasure In Western Wyoming & Northwest Colorado 2 About The News 2 Book Review 3 Early Colorado Gold Mining History 4 Gold Boulder Of Summitville 6 News From Arizona Dan 8 Rare Roman Coin Find 8 Interesting Financial Thought 9
Boulder County Colorado Gold
 10 Calendar of Events 11 Calendars 12 More 1933 Gold Coins Turn Up 13 Breckenridge Gold & Tom's Baby 14
 Annual “Show & Tell”
 15
 Annual Silent Auction
16 Trading Post 18 2011 Schedule of Events 19 Contact List

 
Page 2
The News,
 November 2011
T
he News is the official newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Prospectors and Treasure Hunters Club (
 RMPTH 
): our mailing address is P.O. Box 271863, Fort Collins, CO. 80527-1863. Opinions expressed in
The News
 are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the club or its members. Publication of information in
The News
 constitutes no guarantee of accuracy. Use of any information found in this publication is at the sole risk of the user. Neither
 RMPTH 
, nor its coordi-nators, nor
The News
, nor its editors or contributors assume any liability for damages resulting from use of information in this publication.
Submissions
 Articles, letters and short items of interest on pros-pecting, detecting and treasure hunting topics are  welcome and encouraged. All items submitted for publication are subject to editing. Submittals for pub-lication may be made in writing or, preferably, in AS-CII text format on IBM-compatible disk. If you have questions about a submission, please contact the edi-tor for information.
Copyright
Unless otherwise noted, other nonprofit groups may reprint or quote from any articles appearing in
The News
 without prior permission, provided that proper author and publication credits are given and that a copy of the publication in which the article ap-pears is sent at no cost to
 RMPTH 
 at the above mail-ing address. Clubs wishing to exchange newsletters  with
 RMPTH 
 are invited to send a copy of their news-letter together with an exchange request.
About
The News 
 
Advertising
Classified advertising for topic related items is free for non-business ads. See the “
Trading Post
” section for donation pricing of camera-ready display ads. Do-nations for ad makeup from sketches, etc., are avail-able on request.
About RMPTH
 RMPTH
is an independent nonprofit hobbyist social club, open to anyone interested in prospecting, detect-ing or treasure hunting. Its purpose is to provide an educational and social forum of mutual benefit for members.
 RMPTH
holds a monthly meeting and con-ducts various field outings, as well as offers special presentations and seminars. Active participants have  voting privileges. The monthly newsletter, The News, is readily available on the Internet. Persons wishing to receive the newsletter in hardcopy, mailed format are required to provide the amount of $24 per year re-quired to print and mail. Otherwise, no annual dues are charged as the social club functions strictly by donation.
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Book Review
 By Paul Lange
Colorado Preservationist, the Colorado Preservation Journal by Colorado Preservation, Inc., 2100 Downing Street, Suite 300, Denver CO
R
ecently, I picked up what I thought was a magazine that in actuality is a journal. It is published 4 times annually and includes articles on historic places considered endangered that people can volunteer their time, money and energy to find, identify, restore and save. Among the many featured articles that I reviewed were ones about the restoration of Colorado’s Capital Dome in Denver and the relationship between the Alliance for Historic Wyoming and the Bureau of Land Management and how they are working together to protect South Pass. Gold prospecting around the South Pass area is something that we discussed at our last club meeting in October. There are many pictures both old and new (today) that ac-company select articles. Did you know that there is a new Master of Science in Historic Preservation program at the Univer-sity of Colorado in Denver? Ever heard of a town called Trail City in Prowers County, Colorado? Go to the Colorado Preser- vationist, Inc. website at www.coloradopreservation.org to learn more about them. It is important to keep up with ongoing preservation efforts across the state and at the national level to see how they may impact our mutual hobbies of interest. Other organizations that have websites you may want to become familiar with are as follows: Go to www.historicorps.org to see details of current projects of HistoriCorps TM. Go to HistoricWyoming.org to learn more about the Alliance for Historic Wyoming.
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Page 3
The News,
 November 2011
in most spots and the map said something was hidden and not buried. That showed realism because it would have to be hidden and not buried, as there is not enough dirt that I could ever see. After her death, her nephew  got everything including the rock and I have no idea  what has happened to it. She did not show me another rock she mentioned that her husband had found on the mountain. It was defi-nitely Spanish marked and showed the way to a church treasure location. It had been removed and she had no idea where he got it or which way it had been pointing. In recent years, just to the northwest of their canyon, a very large copper producing mine was devel-oped. Maybe it had pointed the way to that. I don't know  but it was real and it was Spanish. Later, Stan
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 cabin. They told him they knew nothing about it. He said that he had found a cave on the ridge that contained many wood boxes and barrels and thought it was their stash of sugar and such from the war. They knew noth-ing about it but couldn't take time off at that time to go look at it. About a week went by and the professor tried to take them to it but couldn't remember where it was located. They never did find it but always thought it be-longed to the outlaw they bought the place from. That is one story about the place. This is the "treasure rock" story. Esther told me she  wanted to build a sidewalk from the cabin to her pig pen and had found a place up one of the draws that had lots of flat rock. ( I found this location and a spring she talked about and the flat rocks). She would take her pack horse up the canyon and pull out these flat rocks and pack them on down to the cabin. The rocks were red sandstone about two inches thick and about 2 feet long. She pulled one out of the cliff and started to pack it  when she noticed pencil writing on it. When she looked closer she found a map drawn on it. She rushed to her husband and showed him. They looked for the treasure off and on for over 40 years. A treasure hunter named  Apache Jim even flew over the canyon looking for it. I told her I sure wish I could see it and she said she had kept it under her bed all these years. She let me take it and study it.  At the top it said "An 1873 treasure hidden (then the rock had sluffed off to make it unreadable) ladore." It showed the western ridge of the canyon and the head of an Indian chief. If you stand on the road that goes down to the cabin you can plainly see the land mark drawn on the rock. It had arrows pointing along the ridge and then east to a spot marked with two large dots about an inch apart. One of them said treasure. The pencil lead used  was very old, it was dull and gray not black like today’s. The spelling was not good and no starting point was ever made. No distance was ever recorded and that's what made it difficult to follow. Someone had ridden through the draw, sat on the bank of the small stream and pulled out that rock, drew the map and then replaced it so it  would not be seen. It was like a reminder for the person that drew the map. What are the chances of someone coming out there to get rocks for a sidewalk and pulling that out? Was it a joke by her husband, the only other one that knew where she was getting the rock from? Maybe, he did like to make good jokes but he looked for it for many years and never told her if he did make it a  joke. I took pictures of it and drew sketches and they are packed way. I hunted for it about a week with my detectors but didn't find anything. The place is now owned by a Texas hunt-ing outfit that comes out once a year and hunts deer and elk. Is it a true story? I don't know but Esther believed in it. The soil on the mountain is very sparse. You can't dig
(Continued from page 1)
Early Colorado Gold Mining History
T
he Rocky Mountain Company was organized in 1859 by R. W. Steel to bring water to the min-ers on the Gregory lodes and Russell Gulch, Green Russell, one of the Russell family credited with the discovery of gold in Colorado, also had the same idea and incorporated the Fall River Company. The  group quickly merged into the Consolidated Ditch Company, with Green as president. Steele and the RMC went on to work other claims for his company.(1) Steele's new company was the Rocky Mountain Gold Mining Company, which owned two claims on the Gregory Lode, claims in Gregory Gulch, and oth-ers along the Clear Creek drainage. Hollister said of the company in 1866, "They have two shafts on (Gregory #)13, one more than 200 feet deep, usual size and well timbered, exposing an ore vein from 8 to 18 inches wide for the lower 75 feet, and having a 20 inch ore crevice in the bottom. Another shaft on #13, sixty-six feet west, has been sunk to 160 feet in depth, developing an ore vein in the bottom of ten inches; 160 feet from the surface a level, driven 35 feet west, lays bare an average ore vein of twenty inches. There is a whim house on the surface 30 x 60, horse-power for hoisting; crevice barely struck on 14, 70 tons of ore out. The Company own a 20-stamp mill in Black Hawk, which has been closed since 1863. Nothing has  been done on the mine since June, 1865, no agent
(Continued on page 17)

 
Page 4
The News,
 November 2011
"I think Members of Congress should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we could identify their corporate sponsors." - Anonymous
TREASURE HUNTER’S CODE OF ETHICS
I WILL
 respect private property and do no treasure hunting without the owner's permission.
I WILL
 fill all excavations.
I WILL
 appreciate and protect our heritage of natural resources, wildlife, and private property.
I WILL
 use thoughtfulness, consideration, and courtesy at all times.
I WILL
 build fires in designated or safe places only.
I WILL
 leave gates as found.
I WILL
 remove and properly dispose of any trash that I find.
I WILL NOT
 litter.
I WILL NOT
 destroy property, buildings, or what is left of ghost towns and deserted structures.
I WILL NOT
 tamper with signs, structural facilities, or equipment.
Gold Glossary
Spiral concentrator – a device with a spiral form of concentrating placer gold. Commercial models are available for concentrating gold from either dry or wet operations.
 
Gold Boulder Of Summitville
From The Mining Record November, 1976
T
he largest amount of gold ever found in a single specimen in Colorado is contained in a 114 pound  volcanic rock valued at more than $3 50,00.00,  which will be presented to the Denver Museum of Natu-ral History on November 19, 1976. The boulder was dis-covered next to a mine access road in Summitville on October 3, 1975. It was found on land leased by the  world wide mining and metals company from Reynold’s Mining Company, a pioneer Colorado mining firm. Rey-nold’s representatives, Mrs. G.H. Garrey and John Tip-pit have donated their interest in the specimen to the museum on behalf of the descendants of A. E. Reynolds.  When discovered, the specimen Weighed 141.5 pounds. It contains an estimated 350 troy ounces, or almost 30 troy pounds of gold. (12 troy ounces equal one troy pound.) According to Jack Murphy, curator of the muse-ums department of geology, the boulder may be one of the largest masses of gold in matrix preserved and placed on public exhibit in the United States. “Among the many veinlets of gold in the boulder,” curator Mur-phy said, “there is one that is one inch thick at it’s widest part> It goes through the entire mass for about 12 inches. There is more gold visible in that one vein alone than started most gold rushes to Colorado and other states in the 1840’s and ‘50’s.” The “Gold Boulder of Summitville” is not a true nugget,  which is defined as a piece of solid gold, usually rounded and worn down by the action of running water, Murphy explained. The “Gold Boulder of Summitville” is a vol-canic rock with an abundance of crystalline gold in  veinlets and particles that are scattered throughout the entire mass. The specimen is 21 inches from side to side, a foot thick, and 14 inches from top to base. It was not found in a rock outcrop, but rather as a “float”, or as an isolated boulder on a hillside. Mr. Ellithorpe was op-erating a bulldozer and stopped at the spot where the  boulder lay quite by accident; a pickup truck was stalled there, and needed assistance. While he was climbing  back on his bulldozer he noticed a yellow streak gleam-