Click here for Part Four of The Lost Dutchman Mine
Understanding the truth behind Jacob Waltz’s lost mine is like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. Some don’t fit, others seem to come from entirely different puzzles, and many were likely invented to fill the gaps. Even when the picture starts to form, the result is as subjective as a Rorschach test, with few Dutch Hunters agreeing on what they’re seeing.
However, if there was ever a place where the clearest picture of this puzzle was assembled, it was the cattle ranch of Jim Bark. The ranch’s proximity to the suspected site of Waltz’s mine, nearby landmarks, and reliable water sources made it a natural launching point for countless expeditions into the Superstitions. In fact, it sits along the very route Waltz is thought to have taken into the mountains.
Jim Bark made his name as a businessman in the 1880s, purchasing the Marlay Ranch around 1890 with his partner, Frank Criswell. Though successful in business, Bark’s true passion was prospecting. He and Criswell held several claims, none of major significance. In the early 1890s, Bark met Sims Ely, a fellow seeker of lost mines and precious metals. The two became close friends and spent more than twenty-five years searching for the Lost Dutchman Mine.
Bark was in a unique position to have known many of the early searchers. Gottfried and Rhiney Petrasch both worked on his ranch over the years and even received a grubstake from Bark to continue their hunt for Waltz’s mine. It’s believed that Rhiney and Bark had an informal agreement in which Rhiney shared everything he knew, including the clues he claimed came from Waltz, with the understanding that Bark would compensate him if the mine was found. Considering that Rhiney’s connection to Waltz likely represents the most direct, if not accurate, provenance of the clues, this gave Bark a notable advantage over other searchers of the time.
Jim Bark believed Waltz was a “high grader,” a man who stole gold from someone else’s claim. He speculated that Waltz had been recovering ore from old caches left behind by the Peralta family, who were said to have worked the region around 1847 and 1848. According to legend, the entire Peralta company was wiped out in a brutal three-day battle with the Apache. That story, however, we’ll return to later. Bark claimed to have known Waltz personally, to have seen him enter the mountains, and, by some accounts, to have handled samples of his famous ore.
One reason the Dutchman legend endures is the sheer number of adjacent tales of other “lost mines” rumored to lie hidden in the same region. Many of these stories echo elements of Waltz’s account and offer tantalizing clues, but just as often they muddy the waters, creating a maze of conflicting theories. As a contemporary of Waltz and many of the earliest storytellers, Jim Bark may have had a clearer view of the truth than either Holmes or the Petrasch family.
A case in point is the convergence of two familiar stories: the “Two Soldiers” and the account of John Deering. We’ll explore both in more detail later, but for now, they’re worth introducing, as they intersect directly with Jim Bark’s search.
In the briefest terms, the first involves two soldiers who left the Military Trail while hunting deer and stumbled upon a hidden mine. They brought a sample to the Silver Queen Mine, where it was assayed and found to be exceptionally rich. With a grubstake in hand, they set out to return, but were killed along the way, allegedly by Apaches.
John Deering, who worked at the Silver Queen, had heard the story. When he discovered a promising mine of his own, he brought back a sample just as rich. Unlike the soldiers, he refused a grubstake, determined to fund his own return. While continuing work at the mine, a cave-in crushed his legs. He died shortly afterward from the injuries. For the sake of our narrative, let’s assume both accounts describe the same location.
In late 1891, a man arrived at Jim Bark’s ranch looking for work. He claimed to have met John Deering at the Silver Queen shortly before Deering’s death and said that Deering had described the route to the mine, one he believed lay somewhere on Bark’s own range. These are only the broad strokes of the story, but within them are a number of supporting details that suggest Deering’s mine and the Dutchman were one and the same. Jim Bark certainly believed they were.
Bark and his partner Sims Ely were the first to extensively document their search for the Lost Dutchman Mine. Ely published a book on the subject in 1953, a year before his death at the age of ninety-two. While not the first book written on the legend, it is considered one of the most authentic accounts ever published. Bark, for his part, kept meticulous notes, said to contain only the most accurate and verifiable information available. Considering his connections to so many of the original figures, those notes would be invaluable to any serious student of the Dutchman. But Bark never published them. Like so many others in this tale, he kept his knowledge secret. Before his death in 1938, he passed the notes to his nephew, John Spangler, who had accompanied him on many expeditions into the Superstitions.
The Bark Notes have since become somewhat of a controversy, if not a conspiracy theory in Dutchman lore. As the story goes, Spangler once visited the camp of another Dutch Hunter named Chuck Aylor, who had a permanent base in the Superstitions. Somehow during Spangler’s visit, the notes were allegedly copied by Aylor.
Now there are as many as eight different versions of the Bark Notes in circulation, all containing omissions, inconsistencies, and strange contradictions. Many believe the notes were purposely altered to mislead other searchers. The best evidence for this is found by comparing them to Ely’s book. Since Ely and Bark were partners, their accounts should align—but they don’t.
So, who do we trust? At ninety-two, Sims Ely had little reason to lie or withhold anything. By every indication, he wanted the Dutchman to be found and proven real. We may never know and it’s yet another confounding tangle of myth, hearsay, and misdirection conspiring to obscure the truth.
