Click here for Part Seven of The Lost Dutchman Mine
In June of 1931, the hunt for the Lost Dutchman Mine took one of its darkest and most ominous turns. No single event, before or since, has so gripped the public imagination or altered the course of the legend as the ill-fated journey of a disabled government worker named Adolph Ruth.
Adolph Ruth came to the Quarter Circle U Ranch seeking to be packed into the Superstitions. This was the same ranch once owned by Jim Bark, where countless expeditions by the Petrasch brothers, Sims Ely, Brownie Holmes, and other early Dutch Hunters had begun. But Ruth wasn’t after the Dutchman’s gold, per se, rather a Spanish mine formally owned by the Peralta family. He believed the two to be one and the same, and he had a map to prove it.
The story of the map began nearly twenty years earlier, when Adolph Ruth’s son, Erwin, was working as a veterinarian in Sonora during the Mexican Revolution. After treating the cattle of a man named Gonzales, Erwin was repaid with a set of maps said to have been passed down through Gonzales’s family and his cousins, the Peraltas. The maps allegedly marked several mines abandoned when the territory became part of the United States. Erwin later gave them to his father, who had a known appetite for such adventures.
In 1919, the maps proved to have some validity when they led the father and son to some abandoned mines in California. Unfortunately, while exploring the area, the elder Ruth fell into an arroyo and severely broke his leg and hip. He spent two days trapped there and nearly died of exposure but was, luckily, rescued by a search party marshalled by his son. The damage to his leg required a steel plate and he would walk with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life.
When Ruth arrived in Arizona in June of 1931, he was inspired by his recent research and was convinced that he knew the location of the Peralta/Dutchman mine. Tex Barkley, the owner of the Quarter Circle U at the time, politely listened to Ruth’s story. He was no stranger to Waltz’s legend, no doubt hearing a great deal of it from one of his employees, Brownie Holmes. Barkley did his best to discourage Ruth from entering the mountains at that time of the year, citing that a man with his physical disabilities would be no match for the relentless heat and treacherous terrain. Ruth persisted, refusing to be turned away. Finally, Barkley agreed to pack him in, on the condition that he wait a few days while he attended to some business in Phoenix.
Ruth was impatient and, while waiting for Barkley’s return, convinced two of his ranch hands, Leroy Purnell and Jack Keenan, to pack him in instead. As the story is told, on June 14, 1931, the two cowboys packed Ruth and his gear into West Boulder Canyon, near Willow Springs. He was never seen alive again.
Leroy Purnell and Jack Keenan
Several days later, Tex Barkley returned from Phoenix to find Ruth missing and rode out to his camp. The site was abandoned, likely for a day or two. After searching the area without success, Barkley returned home and notified the Maricopa County Sheriff. A formal search followed, lasting forty-five days before it was called off. Ruth was presumed yet another victim of the deadly Superstition Mountains.
On December 10, while guiding an archaeological expedition, Brownie Holmes discovered the skull of Adolph Ruth, apparently pierced by a high-caliber bullet. Several weeks later, his skeletal remains were found a few miles away near Black Top Mesa by Tex Barkley and Deputy Sheriff Jeff Adams. Though suspicion briefly fell on Purnell and Keenan, the medical examiner ruled the death accidental, attributing the skull damage to postmortem scavenging. No murder investigation was conducted.
Many claim the medical examiner’s initial assessment pointed to a .45-caliber round fired at close range. Erwin Ruth certainly believed his father had been murdered, but he was never able to persuade the Sheriff’s Department to pursue the case. The debate continues to this day, though all that remains are photographs that are suggestive but ultimately inconclusive. The examiner maintained that both skull wounds showed inward trajectories, which ruled out a bullet passing through. In the end, we may never know for certain.
Among the items recovered from Ruth’s camp were a now-famous map and a checkbook inscribed with the phrase “Veni, Vidi, Vici” — I came, I saw, I conquered. Erwin Ruth later claimed that additional maps or notes may have been missing from his father’s possessions. The popular belief remains that Ruth found the mine and was killed because of it.
The controversy surrounding Adolph Ruth’s death continues to divide Dutchman enthusiasts and researchers. Some believe there was a deliberate effort by local officials to cover up a murder, carried out to protect Tex Barkley and his crew. Ruth was an outsider; Barkley, a respected and influential local figure. The theory holds that Barkley had already discovered the mine and had been working it quietly for years, using his standing in the community to steer would-be seekers away. One of the more vocal proponents of this view was Ted Cox, a murky but persistent figure in Dutchman circles whose presence in the region not long after Ruth’s disappearance gave weight to his claims. In letters that surfaced decades later, Cox hinted at a network of men who not only knew the mine’s location but may have played a role in Ruth’s death.
Others reject these accusations outright, pointing instead to the official findings and lack of hard evidence for foul play. Among the most respected voices in this camp was Tom Kollenborn, an Arizona historian and Dutchman expert whose lifelong familiarity with the region and many of its central figures made him a key commentator on the case. While Kollenborn never claimed to have all the answers, he consistently cited the medical examiner’s report as the most reliable account available and considered the more elaborate murder theories to be unsupported by fact. Yet his long-standing friendship with Tex Barkley has not gone unnoticed, and some continue to question whether his conclusions were shaped, at least in part, by personal loyalty. Kollenborn passed away in 2018, taking with him a lifetime of insight, and perhaps, a few secrets of his own.
Whether Adolph Ruth died by misfortune or by murder, one thing is certain: he believed there was gold in the Superstitions, and he died chasing it. But was he right about the Peralta family and their lost gold mines? We’ll dig into that in the next installment
