Treasure in the San Luis Valley: The golden horde
September 2, 1997
By Christopher O'Brien
My first book, "The Mysterious Valley" (1996: St. Martin's Press),
left little doubt that historically, the San Luis Valley has had
more than its share of unexplained occurrences.
Combine this documentation with countless little-known myths and
legends, and this remote region's documented history, and you have
served before you a feast of blatantly subtle examples of the
mysterious, the outrageous and the sublime. These mysteries extend
far beyond weird lights in the sky and strangely slain warm-blooded
animals.
UFOs and treasure
There are many wonderful secrets and traditions found in the San Luis Valley and other remote areas of the Four Corners region that warrant
examination. When scrutinizing sub-cultural/bio-regional
beliefs relating to the "unknown," one invariably finds myths and
legends unique to a particular bio-region, and I feel the San Luis
Valley should be considered a classic example.
![[The northern edge of the San Luis Valley.]](14luis.jpg)
Early on in my
investigation, I was fascinated to hear stories and rumors of beliefs
linking UFOs to treasure. In the southern portion of the San Luis
Valley, when a "UFO" is spotted, the lucky witness immediately contacts
"all his relatives." They watch the object closely, hoping it will
hover. If it does hover over a specific spot, they believe that
underneath the object "treasure" can be found. Once a location has
been identified, they dash to the area with picks and shovels and
start digging! Believe it or not, treasure has been found in this
manner. Although I have no concrete proof of this technique being
used to actually find treasure, several sources have sworn they know
of persons who have successfully utilized this method of UFO-inspired
treasure hunting.
Another story I encountered involves a prospector
who waits at a specific location on the side of the Blanca Peak massif for
"fiery red balls" of light to descend. He stares at the spot where
the object touches down, and in the morning, underneath a circular
burn mark on the ground, he has found "ashtray-sized" solid gold
discs. He found enough, in the mid-'80s, to buy a large farm in
the Midwest, but was later found dead from a gunshot wound on Blanca
under mysterious circumstances. This account will be covered in
another chapter of "Inside the Mysterious Valley."
Doing a bit of research, I have uncovered an impressive body of data
relating to as-yet undiscovered treasure. Most of the stories are
tied to early Spanish exploration of the southern Sangre de Cristo
Mountains.
A disease of the heart
Spanish exploration up the Rio Grande Valley in the
16th century is considered the earliest incursion by Europeans
into the American Southwest. The conquistadors, fueled by a
dangerous brand of xenophobic missionary zeal and an unquenchable
thirst for precious metals, quickly reconnoitered the northern
reaches of their new-found territory.
At first, the native Pueblo and Plains peoples welcomed the
strangers, as if they had much of a choice. Riding large snorting
animals, clothed in metal and armed with "barking sticks" of death,
the Spaniards struck terror into the native people. The soldiers,
charging with their lusty shouts of "Santiego!" and "Gold, Glory and God," must have been an imposing sight to indigenous peoples. But
culture shock inevitably gave way to resentment, and many Native Americans,
especially "holders of traditional knowledge," soon chaffed underneath
the puritanical Catholic yoke of the fanatical priests and the
gold-thirsty mercenaries.
The Indians quickly realized that one
thing, above all, compelled the dirty, diseased, bearded white men to
venture into the forbidding semi-arid desert wilderness - GOLD! A
Spanish general, in an honest moment, reportedly told an Aztec chief,
"The Spaniards have a disease of the heart for which gold is the
specific remedy." The Spanish obsession with precious metals
dictated much of their explorations and forced them to overcome
incredible hardship and sacrifice.
Many of the forays north during
the first 200 years of exploration were not well-documented
and most likely undisclosed clandestine expeditions were mounted. It
can be assumed that at least a few of these greed-driven forays into
extreme northern New Mexico and further north into Colorado's vast
mineral belt were met with success.
The thrill of discovery
Blessed (or cursed?) with a life-long fascination with the so-called
"thrill of discovery," I too, have always been enamored by the
thought of finding treasure of any kind. Many of you, I'm sure, can
relate to this.
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Over the years, the discovery
in the valley of
Spanish cannon barrels, conquistador
helmets, arrastas, smelters and
enigmatic
carvings, such as the Maltese Cross
at the mouth of the
Upper Spanish Caves,
have always fueled the
colorful legends of lost
"Spanish Treasure."
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I confess, it doesn't matter if it's precious
stones, Native American artifacts, gem-quality vertebrae fossils, meteorites
or precious minerals, I have always been fascinated by the concept of
discovering the many fabulous treasures contained on our planet.
When this amateur fossil-hunter and wannabe prospector moved out West
from the East Coast in 1989, little did he know he was moving to one
of this country's legendary treasure locales. During my first summer
in Crestone, I happened to meet an old Hispanic man passing through
town. His colorful clothes, gear and demeanor revealed that he was a
treasure-hunter.
His sparkling eyes and wrinkled weather-beaten face
reflected the years he had spent on his elusive quest. I got him
talking about some of the local area's legends and he solemnly told
me a couple of local stories. One of his accounts was of a lost
Spanish Mine with a large wooden door, possibly decorated with a
Maltese cross. His theory was that the door had been hidden by a
rock slide, and his enthusiasm and theories sparked a serious
interest in me that continues to this day.
Dozens of legends
Captured by my professed enthusiasm for our area's rich
treasure legends, in 1990, I was asked by Baca Ranch owner
Gary Boyce to write an article concerning the many fantastic treasure
legends for his short-lived Needles newspaper. He mentioned hearing
about a very low-key, multimillion-dollar search effort that had been
launched on the Baca Ranch, with no reported success. I began
researching and gathering the enigmatic stories together in a
concerted effort to confirm the legends, and write a truly riveting
article.
I've learned that the greater San Luis Valley region is the
oldest settled area in Colorado/northern New Mexico and quietly
features dozens of Spanish treasure legends and numerous lost
mines and treasure accounts. Combine these "legendary" mysteries
with several known notorious lost robbery hordes, and you have an
area with many potentially lucrative secrets to investigate - maybe
more than any specific location in the great Southwest.
Much to my
surprise, I also found (at least some) documentation of these
mythical claims of treasure that have circulated around our section
of the Sangre de Cristos since the early 17th century, and many more
additional "legends" and stories than I could possibly include in a
brief, 2,000-word article. Although publisher Boyce's folded Needles before just before my article was to be published, I've
never lost my fascination for the subject.
Del Norte forays
During the course of the next several years, I had my ears and eyes
open for any conclusive data firmly establishing a Spanish presence
in the San Luis Valley prior to the acknowledged 1692 De Vargas
Expedition.
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Apparently, the Spanish were
seeing
lights around Blanca Peak in
the Sangre de Cristos as
far back as
the 1500s.
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I wondered,
why didn't the Spanish "officially" venture north for so many years.
When the conquistadors and the ever-present Catholic missionaries
first established a presence in Taos, at the extreme southern end of
the valley during the mid-1600s, the vast area north of Taos was
a place of mystery and awe. Young warriors on vision-quests and
shamans were generally the only travelers who ventured north to
the place the Pueblo Indians believed "where all thought originates."
To the east, the Plains Indians considered the valley to be where
dead souls go.
Taos, geographically, is located at what was
considered the extreme northern reach of Spanish power, and the
Spanish never ventured north of the pueblo until the resulting Don
Diego de Vargas expedition which was mounted to subjugate the Pueblo
peoples, 12 years after the 1680 Taos uprising, when the Pueblo
Indians revolted. This may not have "unofficially" been the case.
One of my professors at the University of Washington, who taught
classes in archaeology, was Dr. Alex Kreiger. He conducted extensive research on the different Spanish expeditions.
He knew I was interested in ufology, so he looked up some of the
information in the chronicles for me. Apparently the Spanish were
seeing lights around Blanca Peak in the Sangre de Cristos as far back as
the 1500s; they also heard some kind of sounds they thought
were coming from the ground.
Although the De Vargas expedition is considered the first Spanish
incursion into south-central Colorado, others must have ventured
north. But, it is known that De Vargas, accompanied by 157 men,
marched up the Rio Grande into what is now Conejos and Costilla
Counties, then returned to Sante Fe.
A long, improbable 87 years passed before the next official
expedition north into Colorado. The 1779 "campaign" of New Mexico
Governor Juan Bautista de Anza against Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde
(or Greenhorn) is considered the next Spanish push into the region. I
find it curious that the oldest continuously inhabited dwellings
(some three-stories) in North America were located at the south end
of the valley at the Taos Pueblo, and yet officially, the Spanish
never officially explored north, into the rest of the San Luis Valley, for
over 200 years.
As human nature would dictate, there were undoubtedly many secret
mercenary forays up to Del Norte. Over the years, the discovery in the valley of
Spanish cannon barrels, conquistador helmets, arrastas, smelters and
enigmatic carvings, such as the Maltese Cross at the mouth of the
Upper Spanish Caves, have always fueled the colorful legends of lost
"Spanish Treasure." These same stories were heard by the original
Colorado gold rush prospectors as they arrived in Colorado in the
late 1850s and early 1860s.
Quivira
Arthur L. Campa, in his "Treasure of the Sangre de Cristos," (1963: University of Oklahoma Press) wrote:
"The first legend of the Southwest begins for Europeans when Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca saw an Indian give a cascabel de cobre, a copper
rattle, to one of his companions. This simple happening combined with
the tales he had heard about gold-paved cities created the legend of
Quivira. . . . Stories continued to circulate and accumulate, not only
of cities paved with gold but of mountains of solid ore and lakes
shimmering with quicksilver. . . .In 1692, however, the story of this
fabulous mountain not only reached the ears of Diego de Vargas but
also those of the Viceroy who sent for specimens of a substance
thought to be quicksilver. Some historians go as far as to suggest
that the legend of Cerro Azul was the primary reason for the
reconquest of New Mexico by Don Diego de Vargas."
Caverna del Oro
Another enigmatic popular legend deserves mention. The following
quotes are excerpted from "Caves of Colorado," by Lloyd E. Parris
(1973: Pruett Publishing Co.)
"The legend of La Caverna del Oro, the cavern of gold, began long
before the white man came to this continent. Accounts of such a cave
were passed down from father to son by the Indians, until the Spanish
monks recorded the legend in the fifteenth century during the conquest
of Mexico. . . . Excerpts from the Indian legend, translated from
Spanish Monastery Latin to English, relate that many years ago, before
the alliance of the three great kingdoms of Aztec, Alcolhus, and
Tepence, gold was eagerly sought. Most of the gold was brought from
the mountains beyond the double mountain Huajatolla (meaning breasts
of the earth - now called the Spanish Peaks), several days travel to
the north. . . . The gold and the supposedly demon-infested area were
not mentioned again until the year 1541, in connection with a story of
three monks. These three were left behind after Francisco Coronado
gave up his fruitless quest for the mythical city of Quivira. . . ."
Two of the monks supposedly died after an uprising by slave-miner
Indians, and the third monk somehow was able to mine a vast horde of
gold after convincing the Indians he had subdued the "evil spirits"
that lurked underground in the dark mine underground, which may have
been in the legendary Caverna del Oro - at 13,000 feet up
on Marble Mountain, just over Music Pass to the northeast of the
Great Sand Dunes.
"Once there, he used several fiendish tortures to force them to enter
the subterranean passages and bring forth the gold that lay loose all
around. Later, when these slaves had served their purpose, he had
them killed."
The monk, De la Cruz, and his small group of surviving Spaniards
supposedly loaded up pack mules with the vast treasure and fled from
the northern region of "evil spirits" back south to "the city of
Mexico" with their fabulous horde.
To be continued ...
Story by Christopher O'Brien
This story is an excerpt from "Inside the Mysterious Valley."
(St Martin's Press, spring 1998)
For information about O'Brien's first book, "The Mysterious Valley," click here.
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