WEBVTT - Season 6 Episode 10: The Longest Road 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:14.280 On Sunday, December twentieth, two thousand and nine, a hiker 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.319 came across a vacant white jeep parked up at a 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.840 trailhead in the foothills of the Mystical Superstition Mountains, roughly 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.880 sixty miles east of Phoenix, Arizona. Over the years, the 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.800 other Worldly Superstitions and its two hundred and seventy square 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.720 miles of rocky cactus covered hills, canyons, and boulder strewn 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.120 of royos, have proved an increasingly popular destination for intrepid 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:44.080 hikers looking for something a little more challenging away from 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:48.640 the beaten track. As such, it isn't unusual to find 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.720 the odd car left parked up for days on end 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:56.120 at any one of the many trailheads dotted throughout the area, 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.800 but something about the loneliness of this one particular jeep 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.320 and the thick layer of dust that covered it gave 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:07.760 the hiker pause for thought. Things only became more alarming 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.200 when the hiker came across an eerily abandoned campsite a 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.559 little further up the trail that looked like it hadn't 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.960 been used in days, though it had been disturbed by 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.120 a recent storm. A significant stash of food, water, and 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.039 personal belongings suggested that whoever had set the camp up 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.119 had not intended to be gone from it for too long. 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.200 Cynthia Burnet was at home in Denver, Colorado, the following 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.400 day when she received a call from the Maricopa County 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.000 Sheriff's office inquiring as to the whereabouts of her thirty 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.840 five year old son, Jesse Capon. A check on the 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.880 license plate of the jeep returned Jesse's name, and given 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.520 the circumstances, the police had been surprised to find that 0:01:55.640 --> 0:02:00.200 he wasn't on a missing person's list. As a teenage, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.279 Capon had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had dropped 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.520 out of high school despite routinely scoring near the top 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.639 of his class in exams. For eleven years, he worked 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.560 the same job as a bellhop at the Sheraton Hotel 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.840 in downtown Denver. In the years leading up to his disappearance, Jesse, 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.200 who had few friends and struggled socially, worked every hour 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.760 available to rack up enough holiday time to take an 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.840 extended four week break from work. He told his mother 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.320 only that he was planning to go trekking through Arizona's 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:40.600 Tonto National Forest. The name is a little misleading, since, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.440 despite the pine forests found to the north, large swathes 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.840 of its two point nine million acres, in particular to 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.400 the south, are in fact comprised of rugged flat lands 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.800 and cactus covered desert. So quite why Jesse would be 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.240 camping at the southern edge of it in the Superstition Mountains. 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.800 His mother had no idea. Then, the officer on the 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.959 phone asked her if she'd ever heard of the Lost 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:12.160 Dutchman's Mine, but the phrase meant nothing to her. It 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.560 was only when she went to search her son's room 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:20.720 that things started to fall into place. You're listening to Unexplained, 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:32.760 and I'm Richard McClean smith. On Jesse's bookshelves and strewn 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.000 across a desk, Cynthia found an extensive collection of books 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.320 and maps, all relating to the same thing, the mysterious 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.840 whereabouts of a mythical lost gold mining claim known today 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:51.200 as the Lost Dutchman's Mine. Even before rumors of the 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.120 Lost Dutchmen first snaked their way out of the Superstition's 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.720 ethereal Sun's scorched crags and vast towers of jagged red 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.280 rock the project high up out of the desert brush, 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.600 like desperate fingers reaching up from the earth. The area 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.960 was known as a cursed place, where any who dared 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.120 to venture there would be lucky to come out alive, 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.000 Like many who'd come before him. Jesse Capan had been 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.280 ensnared by the golden radiance of the Lost Dutchman enigma, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.039 unable to resist the temptation that he might just be 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.560 able to do the one thing that nobody else had 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:36.320 done and find it. But there is good reason why 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.400 you're just as likely to hear it. Spoken of as 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.920 the cursed Lost Dutchman's Mind, the story is said by 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.839 some to have all begun in December eighteen seventy nine 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.599 with the arrival of a stranger appearing one night in 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.640 the Mexican community of Phoenix, Arizona, on the brink of death. 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.760 With his hands and feet torn up and his face 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:05.080 bloodied and bruised. The man staggered forward, begging any one 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.200 to help him. As he would later go on to explain, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.400 he and a friend had been prospecting for gold in 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.240 the Superstitions when they came across a narrow gully, at 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.360 the bottom of which was a small stretch of granite 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.840 covered an inch thick in black sand. Looking down at it, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.600 they were amazed to see large flecks of gold glinting 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:32.760 in the harsh sunlight. For years, rumors abounded among the 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:37.160 Mexican community that the mountains, which only thirty years before 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.040 were part of the nation of Mexico, were littered with gold. 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.120 Believing they'd finally discovered the source of those tantalizing rumors, 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.240 the men soon found themselves fishing out golden nuggets the 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.400 size of beams from the sand as they raced to 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.400 gather as much of it as they could. Then a 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.320 strange look came over one of the men. As the 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.080 other followed the direction of his stare, he looked up 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.960 to see the silhouette of a woman staring down at 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:11.200 them from high up on a ledge, who then swiftly disappeared. 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:17.280 Moments later, she returned, flanked by over fifty men of 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:23.479 the Native American Dinnat tribe also known as Apache. It 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.600 is said that for the Dinnair, the superstitions are a 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:31.640 deeply sacred place to be protected at all costs. As 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:33.880 the men tried to make a break for it, they 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.240 were quickly captured and taken off to a nearby cave, where, 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:44.320 after hours of torture, the stranger's friend was killed. Driven 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.400 by fear, the man had somehow managed to escape, then 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.240 walked for what seemed like days and nights, stumbling through 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.039 the treacherous landscape until he reached the safety of Phoenix 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.839 or the gold they'd found he'd been forced to leave behind, 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.760 and where he'd found it exactly. He could no longer remember. 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.480 Here's something you didn't know about me. I'm a terrible sleeper. 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.559 Getting to sleep is fine, but once I'm up, whether 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.360 it's the cat deciding it once fed at four am, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.600 or the little human in the other bedroom having a 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.520 bad dream, there's no going back. Suddenly my mind is 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.360 awash with what feels like every thought I've ever had 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.360 in my entire life. 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That's promo code 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:09.000 explained for twenty five percent off at Sunday scaris dot com. 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.840 In the wake of the California gold rush of eighteen 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:16.080 forty eight to fifty five, thousands continued to prospect all 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.000 over the United States and the hope of striking rich 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:25.440 with its enormous uncultivated terrain newly up for grabs. Arizona 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:31.240 in particular, the region encompassing the Superstitions, proved especially enticing. 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.640 Though some fortunes were made, there is little mention of 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:41.120 any lost gold claims on record until that is, September first, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.080 eighteen ninety two, when a peculiar story appeared in the 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:50.840 Arizona Weekly Gazette titled a Queer quest in search for Gold. 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:57.079 It read missus Ew Thomas, formerly of Thomas Ice Cream Parlors, 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.760 is now in the Superstition Mountains, engaged in work usually 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:06.199 deemed strange to the woman's spear. She is prospecting for 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.960 a lost mine, to the location of which she believes 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:15.760 she holds the key. Missus E. W. Thomas, named as 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:21.040 her husband, was, in fact Julia Thomas born Julia Kahn 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:26.440 in December eighteen sixty two in Louisiana to German immigrant parents. 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.280 Julia married Emil Thomas in December eighteen eighty three and 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.719 moved to Phoenix two years later, where the couple ran 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:39.160 a bakery and ice cream parlor. In eighteen ninety, however, 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.559 Emil walked out on his wife, leaving her with a 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.320 hefty mortgage and considerable debts to pay in relation to 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:51.360 the business. Against all the odds, Julia, only twenty eight 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.720 at the time, managed to sustain the business and over 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.719 time began to rid herself of debt. When Emil was 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:03.280 finally tracked down eighteen ninety one, Julia was granted a divorce, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.520 along with all the land, the store, and personal property 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.880 she'd once owned with her husband. It is certainly strange, then, 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.600 that only a year later she sold it all to 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.920 venture into the mountains in search of untold riches, with 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:25.600 seemingly little knowledge and zero experience in the field. As 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:30.120 many have suggested, it all comes back to Thomas Waltz 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.360 for reasons not entirely known. The year before her sudden 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.480 foray into the mountains, Julia took in an elderly man 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.800 named Thomas Waltz who'd lost his home in the Great 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.120 Salt River flood. The river, which runs through Phoenix and 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.280 to the north of the Superstitions, was the scene of 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:55.520 a disastrous flash flood in February eighteen ninety one, destroying 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.560 much of the small towns and communities that had grown 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:03.040 up in its vicinity. After losing his home, the more 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.040 or less destitute Waltz was then struck down with pneumonia 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.760 and appears to have turned to Julia for help. The 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.600 relationship would be short lived, however, when on the twenty 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.439 fifth of October eighteen ninety one, the then eighty three 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.360 year old Waltz succumbed to the infection and died in 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:27.680 Julia's home. Within a year, Julia had sold up everything 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:39.079 and struck out for the Superstitions. Julia Thomas would ultimately 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.840 fail in her quest to find what she was looking 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.800 for after spending three weeks in the mountains, assisted by 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:51.439 two brothers, Reinhardt and Hermann Patrasche, but slowly over time, 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.800 the strange story of what compelled her to go there 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.160 eventually eked out from the three of them, as they 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.400 each claimed. Despite Waltz's financial predicament at the end of 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.319 his life, in one way, he wasn't quite as destitute 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.400 as he seemed, as he apparently explained to Julia late 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.360 one night in her home as he lay on his bed, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.160 only moments from death. It is said his tale began 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.079 back when he was a younger man living in Sonora, Mexico, 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.000 just south of Arizona, when he was introduced to someone 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:33.080 named Miguel Parolta back in the early eighteen hundreds. The 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.280 Parolta family are said to have established a number of 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.200 mines in the Superstition Mountains, but when war broke out 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.720 between Mexico and the United States in eighteen forty eight, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.800 the family faced the prospect of losing all of it. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.079 Fearing the imminent seeding of the territory to the States, 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.520 the Paroltas gathered as many people, wagons and mules they 0:12:55.520 --> 0:13:01.280 could muster and swiftly headed into the mountains. However, after 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.520 salvaging everything they could and sealing the mines behind them, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.600 shortly after setting off for home, the expedition team was 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.920 attacked and killed by a tribe of Dinnare. Since the 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.400 Dinare had no material use for the gold, it was 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.480 simply left to lie where it fell. This story was 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.960 apparently told to Thomas Waltz, who was also said to 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.079 have been given a map by Miguel Parolta to help 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:32.720 him recover the mines and their lost treasure. Sometime later, 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.040 Waltz is said to have traveled to Tucson, Arizona, where 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:42.559 he shared the story with a man named Jacob Weisser. Then, together, 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.720 the two men ventured into the superstitions, equipped with Parolta's 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:52.600 map and directions, and struck out towards Sombrero Butte more 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.560 commonly known as Weaver's Needle, at the foot of which 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.720 the entrance to the main mine was said to be 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.920 low kated. After slogging their way through endless clusters of 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:09.439 cacti and yuca under the baking sun, the men apparently 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.959 came across three other men breaking rocks at the foot 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.480 of a narrow canyon at the precise spot they'd been 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:21.920 searching for, believing them to be Native American, Waltz and Weisser, 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.680 who'd come prepared for just such a scenario, promptly opened fire, 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.400 killing all three of them instantly. As one version of 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.520 the story has it, the men in fact turned out 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.080 to be Mexican and former employees of Miguel Parolta who'd 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.000 come back to the mountains secretly to find the gold 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:47.280 for themselves. As for the two Jacobs, after discovering one 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.560 of Parolta's abandoned mines along with a significant stash of gold, 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.960 they themselves were then ambushed by a group of Dinair. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.480 Both managed somehow to escape, who got separated in the process. 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.800 Waltz managed to return safely back to Phoenix, but Thomas 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:10.760 Fiser was not so lucky, having been mortally wounded. He 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.480 made it only as far as a nearby village of 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.760 the Native American Pima tribe. There, it is said he 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.600 was taken in by former cavalryman and successful minor in 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.600 his own right, John D. Walker, who owned a ranch nearby. 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:31.920 A week later, Fiser died from his injuries. It isn't 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.040 known if Waltz managed to bring any gold back from 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.480 the Superstitions, or if he ever returned to try again. 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.000 What is known is that in August eighteen seventy eight, 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:48.560 sometime later, Jacob Waltz effectively declared himself bankrupt and struck 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.880 up a deal to sell all his possessions, including his home, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.400 for the modern equivalent of fifteen hundred U s. Dollars 0:15:55.960 --> 0:16:00.320 to a man named Andrew Stura. Part of the deal 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.200 also required Sturah to look after Waltz should he ever 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.480 become too old and infirm to look after himself. As such, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.240 it seems unlikely that Waltz had brought any gold back 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.960 after the first attempt, being by then a tired and 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.160 jaded sixty eight years old. It seems equally unlikely that 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.880 he ever made it back there, if the mine had 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.840 even existed at all before his death in eighteen ninety one, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.120 As rumors of the mine began to spread following Julia 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.920 Thomas's failed attempts to find it, many began to question 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.600 if it wasn't all one big hoax, or perhaps whether 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.480 it wasn't a mine at all up there, but simply 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.000 a stash of looted and abandoned gold also known as 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:54.040 massacre gold, that Waltz and Weisser had discovered. Julia Thomas, however, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:17:05.919 remained convinced that the mine was there, despite being burned 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.200 by her first attempt to find the mine, Julia Thomas 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.480 continued to raise money and support for a second bite 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.760 at the cherry, but was ultimately unable to return to 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:21.119 the mountains. Then, in eighteen ninety four, perhaps wounded by 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.760 accusations that she'd been sucked in by nothing but a 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:29.200 tall tale from a dying deluded old man, Thomas took 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.360 the extraordinary move to publish the exact details that Waltz 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.880 had told her. Explaining all to the editor of Phoenix's 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:42.480 Saturday Evening Review, she revealed where the mine could be found. 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.439 It was, she claimed, located near a two room house 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.960 that lay in the mouth of a cave on the 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:54.000 side of a slope, near a particular gulch in the superstitions, 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:59.040 just across the gulch, she continued, about two hundred yards 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.639 opposite the house in the cave was a tunnel, well 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:07.480 covered and concealed by bushes. This mine was the richest 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:13.560 in the world, according to Dutch Jacob. Confusingly, Jacob Waltz, 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.560 who was of German heritage, was called Dutch Jacob, owing 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.879 to the fact that Dutch was an Anglicized version of 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.280 the word Deutsch, meaning German in English. Hence the phrase 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.360 lost Dutchman's Mine, as it would come to be known. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.479 Julia then offered also that some distance above the tunnel, 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.960 a little further up the mountain, was a small shaft 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.600 that led directly into the mine, from which you could 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:45.480 easily reach the rich gold ledge inside. Once there, it 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.040 was possible to simply pick flakes off the ridge of 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:54.960 almost pure gold. In the years following Julia's incredible proclamation, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.639 many more attempts to find the mine were made, but 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.800 despite some believing they'd got close, no one was able 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.639 to claim it. Then, more than thirty years later, in 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:18.960 nineteen thirty one, one man finally did. Possibly. 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Adolph Ruth's story is the archetype or 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.960 tale of the American dream. Born in eighteen sixty four, 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.120 Ruth is thought to have emigrated to the US from 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:54.119 Germany around eighteen eighty in search of a better life 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:59.200 for himself. In eighteen eighty eight, Ruth and his second wife, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.480 with whom he had two children, moved out to Kansas 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.040 to become farmers. When this venture failed, he set up 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.199 a barber shop and used his spare time to attend 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.240 veterinary college, which in turn led eventually to a solid 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.399 job working for the US Department of Agriculture Bureau of 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:23.520 Animal Industry. But what really excited Ruth was the idea 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:31.000 of lost treasure, in particular lost gold mines. In nineteen thirteen, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.360 he received a letter that would change his life for ever, 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.800 sent by his then twenty six year old son, Erwin. 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:44.879 It detailed an unbelievable story. Erwin, who despite having trained 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.640 as a vet like his father, was working in far 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:52.160 Texas managing a car dealership and had somehow befriended an 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.600 officer of the Mexican Rebel Army, who were embroiled in 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.880 an attempted revolution at the time. Having discovered that Erwin 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.440 was a vet, the officer offered him a job trying 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.720 to cure Texas tick fever in the livestock that his 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:11.679 army were capturing during their various military excursions. With the 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.879 fever eradicated, the livestock could then be sold to buy weapons. 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.720 Irwin agreed to take the job. A few months later, 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:24.360 while working in the rebel army's camp, he was apparently 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.960 recognized by a prisoner who the army had recently captured 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.160 who claimed to have once taught Spanish to Irwin at 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:35.680 his high school. The man named Gonzalez, who was due 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:39.160 to be executed, pleaded with Irwin to help him get 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:43.480 his family back safely to Mexico. For payment, he was 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.560 to ask Gonzales's wife to hand over a set of 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:50.440 maps revealing a series of long abandoned minds that had 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:55.399 once belonged to the Gonzalez family. Taking pity on the man, 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.080 Irwin accepted the offer and Julie carried out the task. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.760 Sure enough, the man's wife gave him the maps in return. 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:09.200 After conducting a preliminary scout of the area detailed in 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.760 the maps, Irwin then wrote to his father, telling him 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.879 that the landscape and natural way points of the place, 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:21.119 an area located in the Brego Desert in California, correlated 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:33.720 perfectly with the maps. On Wednesday, December seventeenth, nineteen nineteen, 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:38.359 Adolf and Irwin struck out for the Brego Desert equipped 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:43.119 with little more than their Model T Forward car. After 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:46.439 getting caught up one too many times in the deep sand, 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:50.440 Adolf growled the maps from the dashboard and jumped out 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:53.240 of the car. Vowing to walk the rest of the way, 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:57.000 after all, as he said, it didn't look that far 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:03.160 away on the map. Despite his son's protestations, Adolf promptly 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:08.480 disappeared over the horizon. The following day, he was discovered 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:11.800 at the bottom of a canyon, having fallen badly and 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:16.080 broken his thigh bone. The injury was so bad it 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:19.760 required having his legs shortened to fix it, leaving him 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:24.159 with a permanent limp. Five years later, he was forced 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.640 to retire from his job due to the injury, all 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:30.479 of which gave him more time to devote to his 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:36.880 true passion, hunting for the lost minds. However, despite numerous 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:40.640 visits to the Berego Desert, he and his son were 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:45.720 unable to find the old Gonzales claims. It was sometime 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:49.400 in the late nineteen twenties, while looking once more through 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:52.840 all the maps they'd been given, that Adolf noticed a 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:56.600 much smaller map that neither he or Erwin had paid 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:02.120 much attention to before. After asking Gonzalis's widow about it, 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:05.600 she explained that the map was in fact related to 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.440 an entirely different set of minds that once belonged to 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:15.360 her husband's cousins. The Paroltas. These minds, she said, were 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:21.000 located somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. Back at his home 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:25.360 close to Washington, DC, with a flush of excitement, Adolf 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:29.240 consulted the scrapbook of notes and articles that he'd collected 0:25:29.240 --> 0:25:32.880 over the years concerning all the lost mining claims he'd 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:37.640 come across and pulled out one of the articles written 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:42.479 back in eighteen ninety four in the Phoenix Saturday Evening Review. 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:46.840 It purported to detail the precise location of the Lost 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:52.879 Dutchman's mine. According to one Julia Thomas, Adolf sat back 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:58.320 completely dumb struck. His map and the article appeared to 0:25:58.359 --> 0:26:09.359 be describing the exact same spot. In mid May nineteen 0:26:09.480 --> 0:26:13.600 thirty one, despite protests from his wife and children, but 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:17.560 then sixty seven year old Adolf Ruth set off in 0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:22.560 search of the great Lost Dutchman. After nine days of driving, 0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:27.000 he eventually pulled in to tex Berkeley's Quarter Circle You ranch, 0:26:27.480 --> 0:26:30.320 close to Bark's Canyon at the northern edge of the 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:36.040 Superstition Mountains. The numerous ranch hands stared on quizzically from 0:26:36.119 --> 0:26:39.560 under the brim of their hats as Adolf limped clumsily 0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:43.639 from the stylish two door Essex he'd purchased for the journey, 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:47.399 dressed in a full pinstriped suit with a steel brace 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:51.000 clasped about his waist that ran all the way down 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:54.880 to the heel of his injured leg. It was all 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:58.080 Texts could do to stifle a laugh when the five 0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:01.560 foot five Adolf and now that he'd come seeking the 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:05.000 lost Dutchman's Treasure and was looking for some one to 0:27:05.119 --> 0:27:09.840 escort him into the mountains from there, he said he 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:13.480 would make the rest of the journey alone on foot. 0:27:14.720 --> 0:27:19.800 After realizing just how serious Ruth was, however, Techs reluctantly 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:23.240 agreed to help. After fobbing him off for the best 0:27:23.280 --> 0:27:26.320 part of a month, Techs finally promised to take him 0:27:26.400 --> 0:27:28.760 up when he returned from a cattle drive he was 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:33.240 due to participate in. No sooner had he left the ranch, however, 0:27:33.680 --> 0:27:37.720 Adolf drove to another of Berkeley's ranches, where he convinced 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:41.879 two of his employees, Leroy Purnell and Jack Keenan, to 0:27:42.040 --> 0:27:45.480 escort him into the mountains instead in return for payment 0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:48.639 and the free use of his stylish car while he 0:27:48.720 --> 0:27:52.560 was gone. And so it was that early in the 0:27:52.600 --> 0:27:56.800 morning of June thirteenth, the three men mounted horses and 0:27:56.920 --> 0:28:00.560 trekked up into the mountains, where at Willow Spring in 0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:05.520 West Boulder Canyon, roughly two miles from Weaver's Needle. Pernell 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:09.600 and Keenan left Ruth to set up his camp, agreeing 0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:11.800 to come back in a few days to check on 0:28:11.840 --> 0:28:16.560 his progress. It was four days later that TEXS. Berkeley 0:28:16.800 --> 0:28:20.600 returned to the ranch, horrified to find that Adolf had 0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:24.720 gone into the mountains without him. Scared for his safety, 0:28:24.760 --> 0:28:28.640 he demanded Pernell and Keenan go back immediately and pull 0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:32.000 him out, but when they arrived at his camp a 0:28:32.040 --> 0:28:35.480