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The Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure [1986]tional News
Gold!
The Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure
Part I
From Freedom Magazine, June 1986
According to Freedom’s sources, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of tons of gold were secretly and illegally removed from Victorio Peak on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico between 1964 and 1977.
You are about to read a story that strains the imagination. It is about the disappearance of a fortune of up to $30 billion in gold bullion. When it was first presented as a “tip” to a Freedom Magazine reporter in El Paso, Texas, in 1981, it was discounted as beyond belief. However, when dozens of unrelated, independent sources began to corroborate the story, it could no longer be disregarded, no matter how bizarre. The following story, constructed from personal interviews, documents and confidential reports, is the result of a five-year investigation.
By Thomas G. Whittle
In one of the most closely guarded crimes of recent history, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tons of gold bullion were secretly and illegally removed from caverns on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the beneficiaries allegedly including former President Lyndon Johnson and individuals connected with the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and organized crime.
The caverns are located in and around Victorio Peak, in a remote, rugged section of south-central New Mexico.
The peak, named after a 19th century Apache war chief, apparently served as a repository for immense quantities of gold mined centuries ago by Spaniards and Indians and smelted into tens of thousands of crudely formed bars.
Between 1937 and 1939, Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss (left) and his wife, Ova (right), working with family members and trusted associates, reportedly removed up to 350 gold bars from the depths of Victorio Peak.
An investigation by Freedom has probed the history of that region, particularly the nearly 49 years since gold bars were first found in that area in November 1937 by a man named Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss, as fascinating a character as ever held a six-gun.
Background research into the enormous wealth contained in the caverns of Victorio Peak revealed many eyewitness reports of the gold.
In 1937, the peak was miles from nowhere. Its occasional visitors included hunting parties, and Doc Noss and his wife, Ova, were on one such expedition in search of deer. They had trekked in from Hot Springs, New Mexico, a town since renamed Truth or Consequences.
According to accounts from members of the Noss family, Doc bagged no deer, but he found something that whetted his appetite for the area — a shaft near the top of Victorio Peak which led into the bowels of the mountain. Doc mentioned nothing of his find to the group, choosing instead to return to the site a couple of days later with Ova.
Using ropes for support and guided by his flashlight’s wavering beam, Doc Noss descended a series of interconnecting chambers which led downward for 186 feet.
Years later, in 1946, Doc discussed his exploration with Gordon E. Herkenhoff, field representative of the New Mexico State Land Office.1
In a four-page confidential report entitled “Field Examination of Noss Mining Claims, Hembrillo District,” Herkenhoff recorded a description:
“Dr. Noss claims that beyond the 186-foot depth, there is an incline downward at 45 degrees for 72 feet.... Beyond that there is supposed to be another incline upward at about 30 degrees for some distance (40 feet as I remember it) where entrance is gained to a cave some 2700 feet long which contains many evidences that the cave was occupied as living quarters by a large group of humans for many years.”
The group evidently had some grisly practices, for the first thing Doc Noss encountered was a row of skeletons, 27 in all. Each skeleton had its hands bound behind it to a large wooden stake driven into the ground. Doc later brought one of the eerie things out.2
Doc’s object at the time of discovery, of course, was more than old bones. Passing through the large cavern, he came to a series of smaller caves — “rooms,” he called them. In one “room” he discovered a large stash of old swords and guns, papers and letters from the 19th century, and a king’s ransom in jewels and coins.
Returning through the main cavern, he noticed an immense stack of metal bars off to one side. There were thousands of them, covered with old, dusty buffalo hides.
After he got back to the surface, Doc told Ova what he had seen, and almost as an afterthought mentioned the long row of metal bars. He also told his wife that there were “enough gold and silver coins to load 60 to 80 mules.”
Ova convinced Doc to return to the big cave and bring one of the heavy bars back up. Begrudgingly, he did so.
After scraping a small section of the bar clean, she exclaimed, “Doc, this is gold!”
Letha Guthrie, Ova’s eldest daughter from a previous marriage, described the next few years as a very happy time for the Noss family, one of simple, hard work with a bright, limitless future. Deferring to Doc’s belief that the gold would all be taken by the government should his find become too broadly known, the work force was confined to the immediate family and a couple of handfuls of trusted associates.
Ova Noss, her two sons, Harold and Marvin, and her two daughters, Letha and Dorothy, helped Doc in the strenuous task of removing the bars, one at a time, from the depths of the peak. Letha told Freedom that she herself handled 12 to 15 of the bars, “and I even put one up and hid it for four days.”
Six men who worked with Doc in removing the gold — C.D. Patterson, Don Breech, Edgar F. Foreman, Leo D. O’Connell, Eppie Montoya and B.D. Lampros — later signed sworn affidavits regarding their experiences.
Lampros, for example, described having his photograph taken with Colonel Willard E. Holt of Lordsburg, New Mexico; each held an end of a bar while it was being sawed in half.
Joe Andregg, an electrician from Santa Fe, New Mexico, reflected on the days when he worked with Doc Noss in the late 1930s. “I was just a kid, about 13 or 14 years old,” he told this writer. Asked about the bars, he said, “I sawed one in two with a hacksaw.”
One person who worked with Doc Noss inside the cave was Jose Serafin Sedillo of Cuchillo, New Mexico. He told this writer that the gold bars in the cave were “stacked like cordwood.”
The bars that Noss and his crew removed from Victorio Peak were, in general, crudely formed, indicating the use of primitive smelting processes.
Estimates vary on the number of bars removed, ranging up to 350 or so.
According to members of the family, there would have been more, but Doc’s work was abruptly and unexpectedly brought to a halt in August 1939 when a dynamite blast, set to enlarge a narrow passage, instead caved the passage in, sealing off the main cavern.
Doc Noss spent the next 10 years in intermittent efforts to regain access to the hoard, in vain. He worked with a succession of partners, the last of whom, Charlie Ryan of Alice, Texas, shot and killed Noss in an altercation in Hatch, New Mexico, on March 5, 1949.
The night before his death, perhaps sensing that a business deal was going sour, Doc enlisted the aid of a cowboy named Tony Jolley to shuffle the locations of various stashes of the bars. There were 110 gold bars moved that night, according to an affidavit obtained by this writer and sworn to by Jolley.
The affidavit states, in part: “In March of 1949 I handled 110 rough [sic] poured bars of gold in the area which is now White Sands Missile Range which is now the area of Victorio Peak. On the night of March 4, 1949, I went with Doc Noss and dug up 20 bars of gold at a windmill in the desert east of Hatch, New Mexico, and reburied them in the basin where Victorio Peak is. We took 90 bars ... stacked by a mine shaft at Victorio Peak and reburied them 10 in a pile scattered throughout the basin with the exception of 30 bars that we buried in a grassy flat near the road we came out on.”
After the death of Doc Noss, Ova and her family continued efforts to regain access to the big treasure room. The U.S. Army, which gained control of the area when it was converted to a bombing range during the Second World War, refused her request to bring in an excavation firm and ultimately ordered the Nosses to stay out of the area.
Word of the Doc Noss treasure spread, and keeping people out of the area was no easy chore. In November 1958, a team of four weekend gold seekers rediscovered the hoard.
Led by U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege, the four had done extensive research on Victorio Peak, poring over old documents and records, and even traveling south into Mexico to check stories there regarding a man who has often been linked with the origin of the gold, Padre Philip La Rue.
All four men — Fiege, Thomas Berlett, Ken Prather and Milleadge Wessel — were, at the time of their find, employees at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. This writer conducted extensive interviews with Thomas Berlett. According to Berlett, the four men proceeded down a fault into the peak for about 150 feet, at which point their progress was stopped by a large boulder. They dug under it, and Berlett and Fiege moved past it for another 100 to 125 feet, coming eventually to what Berlett described as a small cavern, approximately eight feet wide by 10 or 12 feet long.
In the room were two large stacks of gold bars, each roughly six feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long. A third, smaller stack, pyramidal in shape, stood about three feet high.
Berlett and Fiege had found a different passage into Victorio Peak, leading into a different chamber.
The room had been undisturbed for so long that the dust, according to Berlett, lay several inches thick. The slightest movement stirred up a cloud. Nearly choking, the two men hastily marked their claim and made their exit.
Before leaving, both men had observed an old wooden cross on one of the walls. Berlett viewed this as substantiation for the theory that Spaniards had been responsible for stashing the gold.
In September 1961, Berlett and Fiege swore to the specifics of their discovery in detailed affidavits provided to federal officials. They also were given — and passed — lie detector tests.
Among those who attested to the accessibility of the peak’s treasure was Lynn Porter, a businessman now residing in San Diego, California.
On the night of September 1, 1968, Porter drove to the peak with a friend and a civilian security guard from White Sands Missile Range named Clarence McDonald. The three men had been on a hunting party when McDonald, who reportedly had imbibed several cans of beer, began talking freely about a huge stash of gold. Porter and his friends were amused at his story and McDonald, to prove that what he was saying was true, took the two other hunters on a moonlit drive to Victorio Peak.
A narrow passage through rocks kept the bulky Porter from following the other two men into the depths of the peak. He stood guard while McDonald and the other man descended into a large cavern, returning with a crudely formed gold bar roughly 2 1/2 inches wide by 7 inches long.
The gold, Porter’s friend stated breathlessly, ran in a tremendous stack along one side of the cavern — stretching for approximately 200 yards. The two men told Porter they had taken one of the smaller bars from the stack because they felt it would be easier to handle than one of the large bars in moving through the long and sometimes difficult passage.
After some discussion, the men decided that Porter should take the bar to a close friend of his who worked in the provost marshal’s office in nearby Fort Bliss, Texas. Possession of gold was against the law at the time, and the men reasoned that the bar would provide evidence to bring about an authorized, legal expedition to remove the vast quantity of gold. The men believed that Porter’s friend was in a good position to help arrange an official government expedition to claim the gold.
Porter subsequently brought the gold bar to the close friend, who was an Army major.
The major took the bar and told Porter to check back with him in a few days. He did, only to find that in the short, three-day interim the major had been whisked away, transferred to the Pentagon. His wife and his two school-age children had also abruptly left.
The gold bar had disappeared without a trace. No one in the provost marshal’s office to whom Porter talked would admit to knowing anything about the gold, and he was warned by the provost marshal that any future “trespassing” would be dealt with severely.
There is evidence to indicate that many gold bars were removed from Victorio Peak a short time after Lynn Porter brought the bar to the Fort Bliss provost marshal’s office.
Going public with information about the gold stored in Victorio Peak or removed from it, however, is something that people familiar with the subject are generally reluctant to do. And for good reason.
Chester Stout, for example, a retired Army sergeant, traced the removal of two large truckloads of gold from Victorio Peak, but later had to move out of New Mexico; his life was threatened because, as he was told, he “knew too much.”
In all, eight persons told this writer they had received direct threats against their lives or against the lives of their families. Sam Scott, for example, a retired airline pilot, was warned in 1977 to keep clear of anything regarding Victorio Peak for at least five years under pain of having his home firebombed and his wife and daughter killed.
The sources of this threat, according to the man who relayed the threat to Scott, were two agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
The daughter of another man, Harvey Snow, died from a gunshot wound in the head after Snow had disregarded repeated warnings in regard to the peak.
Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, swore to an affidavit regarding another death. The affidavit states:
“I, Thayer Snipes, first being duly sworn, on my oath state:
“That in the latter part of 1972, I had stopped by the Airport Chevron Station at the corner of Airway Blvd. and Montana Ave. in El Paso, Texas, to visit with a friend, Frank Foss, owner of the station.
“That while visiting Foss, a man we both knew, E.M. Guthrie, drove in to the station in a late model Ford Thunderbird.
“That I had known E.M. Guthrie for about three years prior to this meeting and knew him to be the husband of Letha Guthrie, stepdaughter of Milton Ernest ‘Doc’ Noss.
“That I knew E.M. Guthrie had taken an active personal interest in the fate of gold located in Victorio Peak by Doc Noss.
“That I walked over to E.M. Guthrie on this occasion in 1972, greeted him, and invited him out to dinner with myself and Frank Foss.
“That he seemed very disturbed, nervous and agitated, and refused my invitation to dinner, saying, ‘I’m running for my life.’
“That he also said, ‘The Mob is after me.’
“That three or four weeks later Frank Foss told me that E.M. had called him and said he was in Central America.
“That about a month after that, I heard E.M. had been beaten to death in California.
“That after he had been beaten to death, according to the information I received, his body was put back into his car, the car was doused with kerosene or gasoline, and then set aflame.”
Another source confirmed the manner and the circumstances of E.M. Guthrie’s death, noting that “it was listed as just a natural death, but he’d been worked over with a baseball bat.” This source said that he had hired a team of experienced investigators to dig into Guthrie’s death and more than 30 other deaths in connection with a massive, continuing cover-up of the removal of gold from Victorio Peak.
Bill Shriver, an international dealer in precious metals who proved very helpful in the initial stages of this investigation until his death, brought the total still higher. According to a close relative interviewed by Freedom, Shriver was “murdered.” The relative said that Shriver “was beaten up in California, beaten about the kidneys and the head” and subsequently died from his injuries.
The cloud of death shrouding Victorio Peak has reached far.
Edward Atkins of Decatur, Illinois, had been a claimant to the peak’s gold and was vigorously pursuing that claim via attorney Darrell Holmes of Athens, Georgia, when Holmes died under mysterious circumstances.
According to Atkins’ son, John, Holmes possessed key materials which were being used to press the Army into allowing Atkins and Holmes access to Victorio Peak. These materials, including tape-recorded sessions wherein Lyndon Johnson discussed the disposition of some of the gold bars on his ranch, disappeared from Holmes’ office at the time of his death in February 1977.
Edward Atkins himself died, reportedly of a heart attack, in April 1979 while returning to Illinois from El Paso on a matter pertaining to his claim. At least one close relative was convinced that Atkins’ death was not accidental and that it was directly related to his getting too close to the true story of Victorio Peak.
Lyndon Johnson’s name loomed large in the information that Freedom uncovered, with various sources claiming that the president was instrumental in the planning and execution of the removal of the gold. The charges concerning LBJ’s involvement included the following:
# A retired White Sands Missile Range security guard, residing in El Paso, Texas, indicated that he observed Johnson and former Texas Governor John Connally spending about 10 days in the desolate area around Victorio Peak in the late 1960s. According to the security guard, Johnson and Connally headed a team which brought in sophisticated excavation equipment to remove gold from the peak, “the most modern I’ve ever seen,” he said. “They even brought in their own security guards,” he added.
# A retired U.S. Army officer said that while on duty at the provost marshal’s office on White Sands Missile Range during the period of LBJ’s presidency, he was visited by four men in a late model Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham who sought permission to drive to Victorio Peak. One man, a Mr. Moon, said that he was from the White House Secret Service detail and he showed the officer a green, laminated card which stated “Secret Service, Division of the White House.” Another man, an engineer named Dick Richardson, told the officer that he was a boyhood friend of Lyndon Johnson’s and that he had personally counted 18,888 gold bars in one stack in a cavern at Victorio Peak, each bar weighing about 60 pounds.3
# Bill Shriver, before his death, told this writer that he had a copy of a transcribed order from Lyndon Johnson describing in detail how the president wanted a military escort to handle the supply of gold taken out of Victorio Peak and taken to his ranch. Shriver also said that he had copies of other “presidential messages, several initialed by LBJ,” dealing with the clandestine, illegal removal of the gold.
# A source interviewed in Mexico stated that it was common knowledge in the towns of Jimenez and Camargo that Johnson’s 110,000-acre ranch in Chihuahua served as a storage area for a very large amount of gold flown in by a four-engine, propeller-driven aircraft in the late 1960s.
# Still another source reported knowledge of aircraft movements of the gold from Chihuahua to Vancouver, British Columbia, during the period of Johnson’s presidency. According to this source, a B-24 was used to transport at least seven loads of the peak’s gold, with up to 20 tons of gold moving in each load.
# Another source, who asked to remain unidentified, stated that he had personally interviewed several men who had brought a large load of the peak’s gold to Johnson’s ranch.
According to this same source, Victorio Peak “was just like a private vault to certain high-ranking people.” They would “go in periodically and get what they wanted. They would have the proper persons on guard duty.”
Possession of gold by private American citizens was illegal under federal law throughout the period of the Johnson presidency. In addition, Victorio Peak lay on land owned by the state of New Mexico, and removal of gold without permission of the state violated New Mexico law.4
A number of sources also independently named Major General John G. Shinkle, the commander of White Sands Missile Range from June 1960 to July 1962, as knowing about the movement of tons of gold from Victorio Peak. Reached for comment in Cocoa Beach, Florida, General Shinkle adamantly denied any knowledge of the gold and refused to comment at all on the story.
Large movements of bullion from the peak went on for nearly a decade, with the largest single removal of gold occurring in 1976, according to Bill Shriver. This was shortly before a much-publicized expedition, entitled Operation Goldfinder, took place at the site in March 1977.
Shriver estimated the total amount of gold removed from Victorio Peak at 25 million troy ounces, of which 10 million came out in 1976. The gold, he said, was removed and “smelted into old Mexican bars, 50-pound bars.” The gold in its new form, he noted, had no marks to identify its origin.
The gold was then shipped to Switzerland and sold in a new form in Zurich. “The buying entity was a Middle Eastern principal,” Shriver said.
The actual movement of the gold in this last, largest shipment, Shriver said, was “done by [U.S.] military aircraft.” Independent of Shriver, another source traced a number of large removals from Victorio Peak. He estimated the total amount of gold coming from the peak at a staggering 96 million troy ounces, worth, at $320 an ounce, nearly $31 billion.
Army spokesmen have consistently dismissed all reports of Victorio Peak gold as “rumors.” An apparent propaganda campaign, in fact, has been conducted for many years by the Army in order to dispel these reports and to keep treasure seekers away from the missile range.
Part II: The bizarre history of Victorio Peak continues to unravel as the Army, the Treasury Department and the Secret Service authorize a top secret operation aimed at locating and bringing out the gold.
Ova Noss, Leonard Fiege and others don’t listen when they are told to “shut up” — and they pay the price.
References:
1 Freedom Magazine obtained copies of the 1946 New Mexico land office correspondence regarding Doc Noss’ claim.
2 Chester R. Johnson Jr., “Explorations at Victorio Peak,” Division of Research, Museum of New Mexico, 1963. The official version of this report, released after U.S. Army censorship, deleted numerous key references to gold bars and to secret government activities contained in Chester R. Johnson’s original report. The author obtained copies of both the official version and the original, uncensored report.
3 While the purity of the gold cannot be accurately assessed at this time, the mid-1960s value of this stack, which was about one-third of the total amount in that cavern, would be more than $400 million at $32 per troy ounce. At a 1986 value of $320 per troy ounce, that stack alone would be worth more than $4 billion.
4 Those who took the gold were also taking it over what had been claims filed by Doc Noss, members of his family and others who had staked claims to the gold with the state of New Mexico as early as the 1930s. U.S. Army rights to use the land did not include mineral rights, which were retained by the state.
Gold!
The Mystery of the $30 Billion Treasure
Part II
From Freedom Magazine, July 1986
According to Freedom’s sources, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of tons of gold were secretly and illegally removed from Victorio Peak on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico between 1964 and 1977.
In the first part of this series, Freedom reported the bizarre story of a fabulous hoard of up to $30 billion in gold bullion sequestered in a remote location on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
A large number of sources had reported to Freedom that the gold was secretly and illegally removed from its underground chambers by a combination of interests that allegedly included the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence Agency, organized crime and former President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The peak’s modern history began in November 1937 with the discovery by Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss of an immense quantity of gold bars. Over a period of about 21 months, Noss removed a large number of gold bars from one of the caverns, a fact attested to by more than a dozen people who worked directly with him. Estimates on the number of bars removed by Doc Noss and his co-workers range up to approximately 350.
During an attempt to enlarge a passage to the gold in August 1939, the shaft caved in, leading to frenzied and unsuccessful efforts by Doc, his family and a few close associates to regain access to the hoard through hundreds of feet of rocks and rubble.
Nineteen years after the cave-in, in November 1958, U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege led a team of treasure hunters who discovered a second, smaller treasure in another Victorio Peak cavern.
As described in Part I, Fiege and Airman Thomas L. Berlett found three stacks of gold bars that had lain undisturbed for so many years that they were covered by several inches of thick dust.
Freedom also unveiled some of the further history of Victorio Peak, including numerous reports by eyewitnesses and others that a tremendous quantity of gold bars were secretly and illegally removed from the mountain over a period of years, principally from 1964 to 1977.
In this article, Freedom continues the story.
By Thomas G. Whittle
The clandestine removal of tons of gold from Victorio Peak left legitimate claimants to the treasure with no money and little recourse. Principal among these unlucky individuals were Ova Noss and Leonard Fiege.
Ova had been with Doc Noss when he made his 1937 discovery of the tremendous stash of gold bullion inside Victorio Peak.
Fiege, Thomas Berlett and their companions — Ken Prather and Milleadge Wessel — were, at the time of their find, employees of Holloman Air Force Base, located just east of White Sands Missile Range.
As leader of the four treasure hunters, Fiege worked within the Air Force chain of command to get permission to legally return to Hembrillo Basin — the large, bowl-shaped area surrounding Victorio Peak — in order to recover the treasure.
In seeking to return to the site of his find, Fiege solicited the assistance of Holloman’s staff judge advocate, Lieutenant Colonel Sigmund I. Gasiewicz.
The aboveboard attempts by Fiege, Berlett and their companions were stymied, however. The White Sands commander, Major General John G. Shinkle, refused all requests for permission to enter the area, including one made by Air Force Major General Monte Canterbury on behalf of Fiege and his companions.
In August 1961, after forming a partnership with three Air Force attorneys, the men were allowed to meet in Washington, D.C., with senior representatives of the Department of the Army, the Department of the Treasury, the Secret Service and the Bureau of the Mint. Chairing the meeting was the director of the Bureau of the Mint. At the meeting, the four treasure hunters and the three lawyers stated their case. And, nearly three years after the discovery, the men were finally allowed to return.
The operation itself, a five-day affair in August 1961, was “carried out as a top secret project,” according to a heavily censored Secret Service report.
Those accompanying the four treasure hunters included General Shinkle and agent Liliburn “Pat” Boggs from the Secret Service’s Albuquerque office.
The passage used by Fiege and Berlett in reaching the gold was found. Unfortunately, as noted in the Secret Service report, the final 40 feet to the gold “was blocked by large boulders that could not be removed by hand or shoveled away.” Although the expedition had General Shinkle as a supervisor and 14 armed military policemen as guards, no equipment heavier than shovels and picks had been brought. It ended fruitlessly.
A heavily deleted August 31, 1961, Secret Service memorandum obtained by Freedom shows that on that date the missile range’s provost marshal met with Pat Boggs in the Albuquerque Secret Service office. The provost marshal stated that he was seeing Boggs at the order of the missile range commander.
According to the memorandum, the commander, General Shinkle, “was anxious to determine the degree of interest” of the Secret Service in the gold.
In the memorandum, Boggs records that the interview with the provost marshal was interrupted by a telephone call from the Holloman commander, who wanted to know whether the Treasury Department would “permit exploration of the tunnel on weekends.”
Boggs resumed his interview with the provost marshal. The provost marshal “stated that should any gold be recovered from the tunnel, he would immediately notify the writer [Boggs] so that possession of the gold could be taken by this Service for delivery to the Federal Reserve Bank Branch at El Paso, Texas.”
After a flurry of additional memos, reports and top secret conferences, work at the site continued, this time with heavier equipment.
In the interim, Fiege and Berlett had authenticated affidavits they had previously written regarding the gold they had found by taking, and passing, lie detector tests. After those tests, the order to dig came — not from General Shinkle, but from Secretary of the Army Elvis J. Stahr Jr.
New Mexico law is quite clear on the point that there can be no mining or treasure troving on any land in the state without approval of the State Land Office. In carrying forward with this top secret project, neither the Army nor the Secret Service had consulted with that office.
On October 28, 1961, word of the digging leaked out after four civilians — friends of Ova Noss — “wandered” into Hembrillo Basin.
News of the Army’s activities quickly reached Ova, who wasted no time in telling Oscar Jordan, general counsel of the State Land Office in Santa Fe, that her claim was being jumped.
Jordan sent S.A. Floersheim, supervisor of the State Land Office’s Lands and Minerals Division, to investigate. Floersheim, in a memorandum dated November 6, 1961, wrote that he contacted Colonel Jaffe, the White Sands staff judge advocate.
Floersheim told Jaffe that he wanted “to make an investigation of the land down there in question to determine if any activity on the part of unauthorized persons had taken place.”
The colonel, in Floersheim’s words, “was not too cooperative.”
When Floersheim indicated that if necessary he would secure a court order from a U.S. district judge, Colonel Jaffe “attempted to assure me that there was no operation, that it was all a myth.”
The “myth,” however, was quickly shown to be fact. The four men who had visited the peak — Ray Bradley, Bob Bradley, Hugh Moreland and R.B. Gray — had drawn up notarized affidavits of what they saw and heard. The affidavits were specific, down to the serial number on one of the jeeps.
Before Jaffe was confronted with the affidavits, he told essentially the same story to Ova Noss and her attorney, and on a separate occasion to Ova’s son, Harold Beckwith.
According to a later account, “When informed of the affidavits, he [Colonel Jaffe] became quite upset.”
Eventually, Oscar Jordan and S.A. Floersheim got the digging to stop. The Army’s less-than-straightforward practices, however, were not corrected.
A report, for example, entitled “Explorations at Victorio Peak,” was prepared by the Museum of New Mexico in 1963, summarizing the highlights of the peak’s history. This report was heavily censored by the Army. All references to Captain Fiege’s 1958 discovery of gold bars and to the subsequent illegal excavation efforts by the Army — two full pages of material — were removed from the final report.1
Furthermore, the Army misrepresented some important excavation work in 1963 done by the museum and Gaddis Mining Company of Denver, Colorado.
The museum had obtained permission to conduct an expedition to Victorio Peak in 1963. As a key part of the expedition, extensive digging was done by Gaddis Mining Company in an attempt to contact a passage that would lead to one of the caverns.
The Gaddis team ran out of its allotted time and money before it could reach the shaft that would have led to a cavern. The team, therefore, was forced to leave the site before completing its work.
The man who supervised the work for Gaddis on the 1963 expedition, geologist Loren Smith of Denver, was not happy with the results and wanted to return to finish the job. As recently as 1981, Smith wrote a letter to the secretary of the Army requesting permission to conduct a 90-day search.
“We didn’t give up,” Smith told this writer in reference to the 1963 expedition. “We just ran out of money. We had spent $100,000, and when we ran out we were getting close to where Fiege found the bars.”
The Museum of New Mexico also wanted to get back in. In a 1965 application to return to the peak, the museum stated, “The results of the exploration program conducted in 1963 proved the existence of a number of open cavities within Victorio Peak similar to those described by the individual who claimed to have been in the caves and seen the artifacts and treasure.”
And yet, through the 1960s and 1970s, the Army would repeatedly and falsely state that the 1963 expedition had “proved” there were no caves or caverns.
According to Sam Scott, a retired airline pilot who with his brother, Norman, led another expedition into the area in 1977, the Gaddis effort got very close to the fault which led down to the main cavern — the passage which Doc Noss had apparently used to haul up hundreds of bars of gold.
The Army consistently misrepresented what occurred on the Gaddis expedition, citing the “negative results” of the 1963 expedition as a reason all future treasure searches would forever be banned as a matter of official policy.
The reason was never sufficient, however. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, pressure for a bona fide search for the treasure continued to mount.
Among the leaders in the push for a new expedition was nationally known attorney F. Lee Bailey, who represented a group of some 52 claimants to the gold. A search of at least a cursory nature seemed inevitable.
Another expedition to the peak was finally mounted. With a twist of irony, this very limited search was dubbed by the Army “Operation Goldfinder.” Although brief and tightly constrained, it became the ultimate excuse to ban people from Victorio Peak.
The ostensible purpose of Goldfinder, as expressed at the time by expedition leader Norman Scott, was to “validate or not validate” stories about the gold and other treasure.
When contacted, Scott said that he and his company, Expeditions Unlimited Inc. of Pompano Beach, Florida, had been “used” by the Army.
Asked to elaborate, Scott expressed the theory that he had served as a “patsy” to give the appearance of a search in order to release the tremendous pressure that had been brought to bear on the Army by F. Lee Bailey and others.
One of the claimants to the gold who was there during Operation Goldfinder was Joe Newman of El Paso, Texas. Newman told this writer that he had found three piles of gold bars in a small cave within the peak in November 1973. He counted the bars in one pile — there were 600. The other piles were identical. Each bar, he said, weighed up to 60 pounds. They were roughly formed, as though from a primitive smelting process.
Newman provided photographs to Freedom showing extensive activity around Victorio Peak shortly before Operation Goldfinder. According to Newman, the photographs demonstrate that Victorio Peak gold was removed just weeks before the expedition.
By the time of Operation Goldfinder, the entrance Newman used to gain access to the small cavern was covered up by the Army. All possible entrances to the peak, according to Newman, had been sealed with concrete, steel bars, steel plates, mounds of earth, or two or more of those in combination.
“There was no way in hell we could get in there without heavy equipment,” Newman said. “ And then we showed up there without bulldozers, without backhoes, without anything but picks and shovels.”
When heavy equipment finally did arrive at the site, both Newman and Sam Scott charge, its use was restricted to locations where “we knew there wasn’t any gold.”
Attorney F. Lee Bailey had similar words. Bailey acknowledged that his group — one of a half-dozen claimant groups on the expedition — had been stopped in its efforts to dig at Bloody Hands, a site in an arroyo by Victorio Peak so named because of five red hand prints on the arroyo wall.
Because those he represented couldn’t look where they wanted to, Bailey told this writer that the expedition “didn’t really prove anything one way or another.”
There was universal agreement among all of the participants interviewed — except for Army spokesmen — that the 1977 expedition had been poorly executed and had not satisfactorily explored for gold.
Sam Scott charged that the expedition was “conceived to fail.” He continued, “I originally made arrangements for a 60-day expedition. The Army cut that down to 30 and then to 10.”
Nearly 19 years after he had made the dramatic three-stack find, Leonard Fiege crawled down the long passage which led to the same room. In the intervening years, much had changed.
As Fiege told newsmen during Operation Goldfinder, “It’s entirely different. There are timbers in there now. It’s all shored up.” And the gold was gone.
Ova Noss continued to press the family’s claim to the treasure after Doc Noss was shot and killed in 1949. Here she makes a point during Operation Goldfinder in 1977.
Ova Noss climbed to the top of the peak. In the same place she had scraped the crusty covering from the first bar Doc had brought out of the mountain in 1937, 40 years before, the 81-year-old Ova shouted to the wind, “Goddamn Army took the gold!”
While the gold had apparently been removed right from under the claimaints’ noses, Operation Goldfinder was important in that it provided high-tech proof that Victorio Peak harbored a very sizable cave. Using sophisticated ground-penetrating radar, a team from Stanford Research Institute headed by Lambert Dolphin determined that there indeed was a very large cavern situated right at the base of Victorio Peak. “It’s about where Doc Noss said it is,” Dolphin told this writer.
The geological structure of the peak is odd, according to Dolphin. Regarding the cavern, he said that “It’s an unusual geological formation, more or less a freak of nature, but it’s there.”
Dolphin is one of the many Goldfinder participants who sought to return to the site. His scientific interest was not shared by the Army, which summarily turned down his 1977 request for re-entry.
Dolphin would like to reach the big cavern, and he had the idea of lowering a remotely operated television camera through a shaft in order to see what remains in the cave described by Doc Noss as being “big enough for a freight train.”
Expressing a thought echoed by virtually everyone interviewed for this article, outside of military spokesmen, Dolphin said that the Army had been very active in and around the mountain. “Everybody who was there would like to know why the Army dug up the mountain so thoroughly,” said Dolphin. “You could see they went in through the existing openings, explored them, and then covered them over.”
One source familiar with Victorio Peak’s history who asked to remain unidentified described the mountain as being “like a hotel.” There were “five layers of caverns in that mountain,” he said.
The top caverns or rooms held “as little as 10 or 15 tons” of gold, according to this source. The bigger caverns were not all cleared out until the 1970s.
Operation Goldfinder “was all basically a show,” said Sam Scott. “Something the Army could turn around and say — ‘See? This proves there’s no gold!’”
But, at the time, the Victorio Peak show was one of the hottest things around. Scores of reporters from various news media were on hand, including CBS-TV’s Dan Rather.
According to several sources, Lady Byrd Johnson, the widow of former President Lyndon Johnson, reportedly called White Sands every day during the expedition in order to be kept posted.
This writer endeavored to reach Mrs. Johnson but was told that any questions had to be submitted via a staff assistant in Austin, Texas.
The answer that came back was that “Mrs. Johnson has no knowledge about that [the phone calls] at all.” The assistant said that Lady Byrd “was entertaining friends here” at the time of the expedition, and, she asserted, “Mrs. Johnson just doesn’t do things like that. It would be out of character for her.”2
By the last day of Operation Goldfinder, a carefully orchestrated public relations scenario had apparently done its work. Those most closely connected with the treasure had seen their dreams trampled and their claims ridiculed. For them, the 1977 expedition must have represented the end of any hope of confirmation of what they knew to be true.
One of these people was Leonard Fiege.
Sam Scott and Fiege were close friends. According to Scott, “Fiege was threatened. He didn’t like to talk about it. But that’s why he left the 1977 expedition early.”
In an affidavit in the possession of Freedom, Thayer Snipes of El Paso, Texas, confirms the threat and sheds some additional light on the overall situation.
The affidavit states that Snipes first met Dr. Robert Welch of Denver, Colorado, around 1975 or 1976. Welch, according to the affidavit, went to Snipes’ home on several occasions to buy turquoise for jewelry .
On one of these occasions, the affidavit states, Welch gave Snipes his business card. The card identified Welch as a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, although he jokingly referred to himself as a “head shrinker.”
The subject of treasure at Victorio Peak came up on one occasion. On this occasion, according to Snipes’ affidavit, “Dr. Welch stated that a U.S. Air Force captain had been sent to his office by the military.”
Snipes continues, “Dr. Welch stated that ‘the military wanted this man to be put away,’ which he further explained as meaning locked away in an insane asylum.
“ ... Dr. Welch stated that on numerous occasions he hypnotized the captain.
“ ... while under hypnosis, the captain told him he had found gold bars in a cave in Victorio Peak.
“ ... also while under hypnosis, the captain stated he had held gold bars in his hands and had covered up stacks of gold bars with rocks and dirt, intending to return later and retrieve the treasure legally.
“ ... Dr. Welch stated that he felt he could not put this man away because he was telling him the truth about the gold, and that he could not lie while under hypnosis.”
Snipes’ affidavit states that “I later met U.S. Air Force Captain Leonard V. Fiege while on the March 1977 expedition to Victorio Peak.
“ ... while on the expedition, I told Captain Fiege the story in front of several witnesses.
“ ... Captain Fiege’s reaction to the story was one of extreme surprise and shock.
“ ... Captain Fiege said he remembered being sent to a psychiatrist named Robert Welch by the military, but that he did not realize that he had been hypnotized.”
According to the affidavit, “Captain Fiege said he had been shipped overseas after finding gold in Victorio Peak, and that he had been ‘harassed ever since’ by the military.”
The affidavit states that Fiege “said he was going to investigate the matter of his visits to the psychiatrist and see what had happened during those visits.”
The affidavit closes with the statement that “Captain Fiege left the expedition a couple of days later, saying that he and his family had been threatened with death if he continued his efforts to prove gold had been in Victorio Peak.”
Fiege did leave the expedition, but, as described by Sam Scott and others, threats did not shut him up.
Scott signed a sworn affidavit regarding the harassment and intimidation leveled at Fiege which only ended with his death in 1979.
According to this affidavit, “I can recall many occasions (probably 10) that Leonard told me about his harassments and the threats to his and his children’s lives. For example, the time that Leonard spoke to a Lion’s Club luncheon in Milwaukee, only to be threatened that night on the telephone. Then there was the time that he was told at supper time what his kids had for lunch in the school cafeteria, their route to and from school, times, etc. Again, a nasty voice on the telephone — a threat on their lives.”
In a personal interview, Fiege’s daughter, Jan, confirmed for this writer the fact of the threats which plagued the family. In 1971 or 1972, for example, shortly after moving to Denton, Texas, she received a phone call from her father telling her that he had just received a call threatening all three of his children if he did not keep his mouth shut about Victorio Peak. Fiege had called her to see if she was all right. The caller knew where all three of his children were, Fiege told his daughter. He even knew that Jan had just taken a job at a diner in Denton. The bewildered Fiege told his daughter that with the operator’s help he had been able to trace the call to Kansas City, Missouri — hundreds of miles from himself in Wisconsin and from his daughter in Texas.
According to Jan, she returned to the family home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, not too long after that and heard a threatening voice on the phone there herself. The male caller told her that unless her father shut up about Victorio Peak, someone was “going to die.”
Similar threats were made to others. Harvey Snow, for example, was told over the phone where each of his five children were by geographic coordinates — including a son who was on a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific at the time. Snow was told to stay away from White Sands Missile Range or his children would be killed. Snow disregarded the warning, and his youngest daughter was found shot to death shortly thereafter.
A grandson of Ova Noss described an apparent attempt on Ova’s life to Freedom. Shortly after the expedition, someone entered her house at night by forcing a window. The intruder turned on the gas on the stove. “If we hadn’t gotten there,” the grandson said, “in 10 or 15 minutes, she would have had it.”
As it was, Ova had to be hospitalized. The grandson mentioned that after the expedition, Ova’s home was broken into two or three more times. Various items connected to Doc Noss’ treasure were stolen.
By the end of 1979, both Leonard Fiege and Ova Noss — the two major living claimants to the gold — were dead.
While it cannot be proven that their names should join the roster of people who died in connection with an apparently violent cover-up of the removal of gold from Victorio Peak, their deaths did mark the end of vigorous pursuit of the gold by active claimants.
Nearly 10 years after Operation Goldfinder failed to answer the many questions about Victorio Peak, the mystery surrounding the treasure has deepened and darkened.
References:
1 “Explorations at Victorio Peak,” by Chester R. Johnson Jr., Division of Research, Museum of New Mexico, 1963. Freedom Magazine obtained copies of both the censored and uncensored reports, as well as copies of the affidavits mentioned above from the four men.
2 For the role that President Johnson played in the removal of tons of gold bullion from Victorio Peak, see Part 1.
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Monday, February 9, 2009
Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 5)
(A view of Hatch, NM from the other side of the Rio Grande.)
"Chili Capital of the World"
I want to mention Hatch, NM and its relative importance to the Victorio Peak Treasure legend. Why is little Hatch an interesting subset to this treasure tale? Let's take a look. Both Doc and Babe were in Hatch on multiple occasions over the years and I believe they may have lived there for a time as well. Other people who figure prominently in this tale of 100 tons of gold, including some Cheyenne Mining Company investors, also lived in the Hatch area.
Costplustools
Thus, anyone who wants to seriously research the Victorio Peak Treasure needs to take (at the very least) a cursory look at Hatch and perhaps city records dealing with any persons or incidents relating to this treasure legend. Oh, and one more thing. They don't call Hatch the "Chili Capital of the World" for nothing. Some of the best red and green chilis you've ever tasted are grown in and around Hatch, and each year the community holds a very popular Chili Festival for all comers.
Babe Carries On
Many say that Doc and Babe had patched things up between themselves just before Doc's murder. Tue or not, Babe did not give up her quest for the Peak's treasure trove after Doc's untimely demise. Plucky to the core, Babe took on all comers with a fierce stubbornness and a "take no prisoners mentality" when it came to her and Doc's treasure.
It wasn't long after Doc's death that the word really got out on the possibility of there being a huge treasure trove buried inside Victorio Peak. Suddenly, claimants began appearing from the woodwork and Babe fought back as best she could against these interlopers, one of which was (yes, you guessed it) Violet Boles, Doc's "other" wife from Arkansas.
Two New Claimants
Two other claimants were the State of New Mexico and the Federal Government. Both the State and the Feds laid claim to the Hembrillo Basin and Victorio Peak, ostensibly wrangling over who the land should belong to, but making no mention of the possible treasure trove cached inside Victorio Peak. Hmmmmmm. Of course the State and the Feds (U.S. Army) wouldn't be interested in the possibility of getting their greedy little hands on millions and millions of dollars' worth of treasure. Nope, not at all....
So the State and the Feds duked it out in the courts of law for 6 years, finally ending their dispute in 1955 with the Feds the obvious winners. During this entire time Babe was busy filing claims of her own and sneaking onto Victorio Peak whenever she could scrape up enough money and help to keep digging her way to the "treasure room." But with the Army's victory over the State came yet another eviction notice for Babe and she was banned from the Peak for good.
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So this treasure tale continues its multitude of twists and turns. In Part 6 of this series, I'll bring to light another "discovery" atop Victorio Peak. Until then keep smiling.
I
Friday, February 6, 2009
Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 4)
The Cheyenne Mining Company
After their failed attempt to enlarge the main access tunnel to the
"treasure room" deep inside Victorio Peak, Doc and Babe were in a quandary. The amount of work necessary to once again gain access to the treasure seemed insurmountable.
But the gears were whirling inside Doc's mind and the brainstorm he came up with was something called the Cheyenne Mining Company. Using his considerable persuasive talents and the treasure as a lure, Doc managed to recruit a group of cash investors to join the Company and help finance excavation of the tons of rock and dirt that had blocked the access tunnel.
This is interesting in and of itself because most Americans at the time (late 1930s, early 1940s) had little in the way of spare cash to toss at a chimera like the one Doc conjured up for them. But the pull of gold is strong, and the pull of greed even stronger. Thus, by December 1941 the Cheyenne Mining Company was not only up and running, but had held its first "shareholder" meeting and had enough money in its coffers to begin the necessary excavation work.
More Bad Luck
But bad luck dogged Doc and Babe yet again, not to mention the investor membership of the Cheyenne Mining Company. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and America found itself a World War II combatant.
Not long after Pearl Harbor U.S. Army officials showed up in Southern New Mexico to announce that the White Sands and Hembrillo Basin areas were now part of a new military test range and were "off limits" to all comers, including Doc, Babe, and the forlorn members of the Cheyenne Mining Company. Since Victorio Peak and its immense treasure trove lay within the restricted area, all bets were off. At least until the war ended.
Doc Finds Himself a New Wife
By the end of WWII not all was well with Doc and Babe both personally and in terms of their intent to remove the bulk of Victorio Peak's well-guarded treasure. The U.S. Army was still recalcitrant about allowing "outsiders" into the Hembrillo Basin area, although there is evidence that Doc and Babe may have snuck in and attempted to try their hand at a little excavation work on a number of occasions.
Worse yet, Doc and Babe had a falling out which led to his departure for "greener fields" (in this case Arkansas) where, in 1947, he hooked up with another woman, eventually marrying her. Doc's new wife, Viola Boles, would figure prominently down they road in this convoluted treasure tale.
A Deadly "Shell Game"
Sometime in 1949 Doc hatched a plan (a con game?) to sell a number of gold bars he said he'd removed from Victorio Peak before the access tunnel collapse. He said he'd stashed these in a secret desert location and this was ostensibly verified in later years by a local cowboy named Tony Jolley who stated under oath that he himself had helped Doc bury those same gold bars.
One person who was attracted to Doc's tale of gold bars for sale "under the table" was a Texas oil man of moderate substance named Charley Ryan. Ryan fronted Doc with cash and a pick up truck to help finance the gold recovery. Time dragged on and Doc returned to hit Ryan up again and again for more cash, citing more excuses as to why Doc couldn't recover the gold right now. This proved to be a deadly "shell game" for Doc.
Ryan was no fool and was at least as big a hot head as Doc himself was. During a heated argument late one afternoon voices were raised, threats made, and physical confrontation followed. Doc tried to beat a hasty retreat to his pick up truck down the street but Ryan stalked after him, gun in hand. "Shoot the son of a bitch!" screamed Ryan's wife and the oil man did just that, killing Doc with a shot to the upper cheek and leaving him slumped deader than a doornail over the right front fender of the pick up truck.
No, this is not the end of the Victorio Peak Treasure tale my friend. There is much, much more. So stay tuned....
If you liked this post, you may want to read: "Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 3)"
http://treasuretrovegold.blogspot.com/2009/01/legends-of-lost-gold-victorio-peak_27.html
(c) J.R. 2009
At the end of my previous post on New Mexico's Victorio Peak Treasure ("Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure [Part 1]" http://treasuretrovegold.blogspot.com/2009/01/legends-of-lost-gold-victorio-peak.html) I mentioned that I'd continue with the legend's history and significant events in the next post. So here goes (please note that all quotes by the parties involved are in italics):
"Something Unusual"
In 1937 the protagonist of our story, Milton "Doc" Noss, was illegally practicing foot medicine as a podiatrist in Hot Springs, New Mexico (now Truth or Consequences). In November of that same year he, his wife Ova "Babe" Noss, and another couple (who remain unnamed) were on a combined hunting and camping excursion in the Hembrillo Basin, not far from Victorio Peak.
At some point Doc slipped away from the others to hunt deer on his own. He returned to the campsite quite late in the evening and pulled Babe aside in their tent, swearing her to secrecy and whispering to her that he had "found something unusual" near the top of the mountain that included a small opening covered by a rock that led into a "cave-like" room.
"That Was the First of the Treasure"
To ensure that no undue suspicions regarding their activities were raised, Doc and Babe waited for a month or two before to returning to Victorio Peak with lengths of rope, digging tools, lanterns, and other supplies. Over the course of 3 or 4 visits, Doc expanded his initial discovery by venturing deeper and deeper into the mountain, squeezing himself through narrow passages and at one point, crossing an underground stream.
Finally, one fateful evening, after being inside the bowels of Victorio Peak for hours, Doc climbed his way back to the surface to confront a very worried Babe. Without saying a word Doc motioned Babe over to the campfire she had built and with shaking hands reached inside his vest and pulled out an old leather bag.
"It looked like a horse's feed bag" and was filled with "old foreign money" quoted Babe in later years. "That was the first of the treasure," said Babe. Over the next few months Doc would recover a number of other treasure items from inside Victorio Peak, including jewels, an old sword, and a gold crown.
"The Treasure Room"
Doc told Babe that the interior of the mountain was riddled with tunnels and caverns including a huge central chamber that Doc called "the treasure room." According to Doc inside this large, central cavern were several large stacks of "pig iron" which later turned out to be various-sized bars of gold (again, according to Doc) with a black oxidation coating on them. Also in the treasure room were wooden crates filled to the brim with jewels, old weapons and armor, trunks filled with lace and velvet, religious statues, gold crosses, and even old documents and letters.
To prove his point Doc handed Babe a gold crown. Later, while they were at home, Babe cleaned the crown at her kitchen sink, still unable to fully comprehend the treasure trove that Doc had found inside Victorio Peak. In later years Babe stated that "I took it to a jewelerman in El Paso and when he seen it he starting talking to us real polite. The crown had 243 diamonds and one big pigeon-blood ruby."
We'll continue with this fascinating treasure legend in my next post on the Victorio Peak Treasure. Until then be safe and good hunting to you!
If you liked this post, you may want to read: "$230,000 in Buried Gold"
(Perry County, Mississippi and the New Augusta area.)
The Southern "Land Pirate"
James Copeland, often called the Southern "Land Pirate," and his gang of criminal associates plagued Perry County (now Lamar County), Mississippi for nearly 18 years from 1839-1857. Copeland began his criminal career as a small-time thief and hog rustler, but after aligning himself with other local "ne'r do wells" like Gale Wages and Charles McGrath, his depredations and crimes increased both in number and in significance.
The Copeland Gang ranged far and wide in Perry County (and outside the county's environs as well) stealing anything that wasn't tied down, including stock and tools. During numerous home intrusions Copeland and his boys also absconded with silver and gold coin, jewelry, and family heirlooms including silver flatware. After Copeland was actually jailed for a brief period in 1843, he and the gang retaliated by burning down the Perry County courthouse.
Murder, Buried Loot, and Nearly a Quarter Million in Gold
In the early years of its reign of terror the Copeland Gang ran wild because local law enforcement was essentially non-existent and the vigilantes who tried to bring the gang to justice early on were disorganized and incompetent. This allowed Copeland and his minions to increase their criminal activities to the point they actually committed murder. The 2 unfortunates in question were Robbert Lott and Thomas Sumrall, well-respected Perry County citizens.
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The murders were the turning point for the Copeland Gang as the vigilantes grew both in numbers and in proficiency. Since Copeland was always on the move and literally "one step ahead of the law," he began burying caches of his stolen loot in various parts of Perry County. According to one of his men who was later captured, one of Copeland's caches which was buried in or near Catahoula Swamp contained nearly $230,000 in gold coin and jewelry. This informant, after disclosing the nature and size of the treasure cache, refused to cough up its exact location and was subsequently hung by vigilantes.
Copeland and His Gang Meet Justice
By 1857 all of the "Land Pirate's" gang of thieves, murderers, and thugs had met their fate, most by hanging at the hands of vigilante groups who had hunted each and every one of them down with dogged persistence and vengeful hearts. Copeland himself was hung on October 30, 1857. Here are a few of his final words:
"It is often I have meditated upon this subject since my imprisonment and often now I remember my father's advice to me when I was young, and repented a thousand times over with sorrow and regret that I failed to receive his good advice. Much I have suffered, but after tomorrow (his execution date, J.R.) my troubles will be over or worse than at present. I bid you a long farewell."
A Treasure Tale of Substance and Credibility
Copeland went to the gallows without revealing a single location of any of his buried treasure caches, including the big one containing nearly a quarter million dollars worth of gold. Although many have searched for Copeland Gang treasure caches over the intervening years, I can find no record of any of them being located or recovered.
Since the Copeland Gang and its movements and depredations in today's Lamar County, Mississippi are reasonably well documented, this tale of lost treasure contains a great deal of substance and credibility. If anyone out there decides to get down to it and perform additional research on the Copeland Gang treasures, remember that the historical records concern Perry County, not Lamar County (which did not exist at the time).
Good luck to you!
If you liked this post, you may want to read: "5 Famous Lost Mines and Treasures"Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 3)
A Pressing Need for Secrecy
In my previous post on the Victorio Peak Treasure, I alluded to the fact that Doc had sworn Babe to secrecy regarding his finds, including the gold crown Babe said she had shown to a "jewelerman" in El Paso. Most modern treasure hunters fully realize the need for being silent and circumspect about treasure finds. (I'm sure you, the reader, understand why.)
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But Doc and Babe had even more reason to be secretive about their finds in Hembrillo Basin, thanks to a little piece of Federal legislation known as the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. The Act prohibited private citizens in the United States from owning gold in any form other than coins or jewelry.
It was now 1939 and the repression inherent in the Gold Act had been in place for nearly 5 years. Doc rightfully feared that if he reported his finds at Victorio Peak, the Feds would step in and take all that treasure away from him. In this assumption he was pretty much correct. So he and Babe carried on their work to more easily reach the mountain's "treasure room" on their own, silently and away from prying eyes (at least initially).
Bottlenecks, an Engineer, and Too Much Dynamite
Doc's frustration level mounted with each day's work trying to improve access to the tunnels that honeycombed the Peak and led to the main treasure cave. Try as they might, work on these bottlenecks proved beyond the capabilities of Doc and Babe, and their cheap hand tools. Seeing no other alternative, Doc hired a mining engineer to help solve the problem.
Whether the engineer was apprised of the true reason for his hiring is suspect, but if Doc was the hustler many made him out to be, I'm sure he made up a good cover story. The mining engineer's approach to the access issue was dynamite. One good blast with properly set charges was all it would take he told Doc. Famous last words...
According to what Babe later told family members, the engineer screwed things up royally. The dynamite charge was too strong and instead of opening up the access tunnels, the huge explosion collapsed them, including the main passageway to the "treasure room." Doc, understandably, was furious.
An Alternate Scenario
However, some Victorio Peak treasure hunters and researchers believe in an alternate scenario. They think there never was a mining engineer and that Doc deliberately collapsed the main passageway to keep others from finding the vast treasure storehouse deep within the bowels of Victorio Peak.
Who truly knows? Doc and Babe are both long dead and like most treasure legends, the Victorio Peak tale has as many gaps in it as it does solid leads. Again, Doc's reputation as a con man preceded him, and perhaps he was working an angle to hustle "investors" for capital outlay money to recover a treasure that was, after all was said and done, non-existent.
I'll continue on with this great treasure legend in Part 4 of my Victorio Peak posts. See you next time.
If you liked this post, you may want to read: Legends of Lost Gold: the Victorio Peak Treasure (Part 2)"
http://treasuretrovegold.blogspot.com/2009/01/legends-of-lost-gold-victorio-peak_27.html
(c) J.R. 2009
