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FILE 118 · VOL XIX · Nobody Came Back Out
People Die Every Year Looking for This Gold Mine. The Map Still Works.
The map leads to the gold. It just doesn't say who's guarding it.
Based on: The Lost Dutchman Mine
Intake record
| Recovered from | Pocket of a canvas backpack found in a canyon, Superstition Wilderness, Arizona |
|---|---|
| Contents | A hand-drawn map on deerskin, a GPS track log with 41 days of data, a search-and-rescue debrief, a gold nugget wrapped in a newspaper page from 1931 |
| Finder | Dale Arbogast, Maricopa County search-and-rescue volunteer |
| Status | The deaths are documented. The mine has never been found. The map is not on record. |
Recovered file
East of Phoenix, Arizona, rise the Superstition Mountains. They are a maze of cliffs, spires and dry canyons that bake at over a hundred degrees in summer. Few trails. Little water. Rattlesnakes. Rock that crumbles under your boots. [1]
Somewhere in there, according to a legend more than 130 years old, is a gold mine so rich that the gold sits in the rock like raisins in a cake. [1]
The legend is tied to a real man. Jacob Waltz was a German immigrant, called "the Dutchman" because people misheard the word "Deutsch." He was a prospector. He died in Phoenix in 1891. [1] People said he had shown up in town now and then with high-grade gold and would never say where it came from. People said that on his deathbed, he described the mine to the woman who cared for him. [1]
Nobody has ever found it. Many people have tried. Many have not come back.
In June 1931, a 66-year-old man from Washington, D.C., named Adolph Ruth went into the Superstitions to search for the mine. He carried a map he believed would lead him to it. He had a bad leg and walked with difficulty. [2]
He vanished.
In December, a skull was found in the mountains. It had two holes in it that some people believed were bullet wounds. The rest of his remains were found weeks later. His map was never found. [2]
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 118 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.