Click here for Part Three of The Lost Dutchman Mine
The Petrasch family immigrated from Germany and settled in the Phoenix area in the mid-1880s. It’s generally believed that Herman arrived only after Jacob Waltz’s death, though accounts vary. Following the failed 1892 expedition to find Waltz’s mine, the Petrasch brothers and Julia Thomas had a falling out. While Julia never ventured into the mountains again, Rhinehart (Rhiney), his brother Herman, and their father, Gottfried, dedicated the bulk of their lives to hunting the Dutchman’s gold.
Their search for the Dutchman’s gold gave rise to countless stories—some true, some half-true, and others complete fabrications. It’s widely accepted that Rhiney and Julia spent weeks, possibly longer, with Waltz during his final days, during which Waltz spoke often about his mine. Rhiney was likely the primary recipient of that information, as he and Waltz shared a native language. While unverified, many believe Waltz drew a map and allowed Rhinehart to record key details. In these versions, Rhiney later claimed the notes were either lost or destroyed.
Rhinehart Petrasch
Some accounts suggest that Rhiney and Julia had been drinking heavily during Waltz’s final days, which may explain why so many details were forgotten. To complicate matters, Julia relied on translated information, with Rhiney converting Waltz’s German into English. Whatever the case, key pieces of the puzzle slipped through their fingers, and it fell to Herman to make sense of the fragments.
After years of searching with no success, Herman and Rhiney had a bitter falling out that lasted more than fifty years. Whether it was Herman’s frustration with Rhiney’s poor memory or some more personal grievance is unknown, but the brothers went their separate ways. Rhiney moved to Globe, Arizona, in 1907, while Herman remained in the Superstitions for the rest of his life. Gottfried’s mental health declined in his later years, and he died in an asylum in 1914 at the age of eighty.
Rhinehart Petrasch died on February 3, 1943, from a shotgun wound to the head. Although his death was officially ruled a suicide, many believe he was murdered. With him died the last living memory of Waltz’s confession. It is said that the two brothers reconciled shortly before Rhiney passed. Herman lived another ten years, dying in November of 1953. The legacy they left behind lives on in the Dutchman’s clues, inherited through generations of searchers.
It’s a strange legacy that Waltz left behind. Nearly all surviving clues trace back to two main sources: Dick Holmes on one side, and Rhinehart Petrasch and Julia Thomas on the other. The animosity between them makes it unlikely they ever shared information, yet the similarities in their accounts suggest a common source. Over time, as both camps failed to find the mine, the clues began to twist and blur in the retelling, passed from one searcher to the next, until interpreting them became less a matter of fact than of faith.
There is one place where the paths of both camps seem to intersect, not through cooperation, but through proximity. That place was the ranch of Jim Bark, later known as the Quarter Circle U. Although Holmes and the Petrasch-Thomas camp were rivals and unlikely to have shared information directly, many expeditions from both sides began there. The people who lived and worked on the ranch, Bark included, would have been exposed to years of Dutchman clues, stories, and whispered directions. It is likely that more of Jacob’s knowledge passed through that ranch than either camp ever realized. We’ll explore the full significance of the Quarter Circle U in next week’s chapter. For now, I’ll leave you with a partial list of the Dutchman’s clues, edited for clarity. There are many more beyond these, but I’ve focused on those that are most commonly cited and most plausibly authentic
- Go over the mountain from the cow farm (accepted as being the Quarter Circle U)
- No miner will find my mine
- From my mine, you can see the military trail, but from the military trail, you cannot see my mine
- My mine is in a north-south trending canyon
- There is a rock “face” on the trail to my mine
- There is a trick in the trail to my mine
- The setting sun shines into the entrance of the mine
- There is a rock house below the mine in the canyon
- The Four Peaks mountains line up as one from the mine
- There is a pit above the tunnel
- There is a cave directly across the canyon from my mine
- The mine is in extremely rough terrain
- The mine lies inside an imaginary circle no more than five miles in diameter with Weavers Needle at the center
- If you have gone past three red hills, you have gone too far
- There is a rock that looks like a horse with one ear laid back
- The mine is funnel-shaped, located on a mountainside in a high ravine. The mouth of the mine faces west
- There is a sharp peak to the south
- The shaft is high above the canyon and concealed by brush
- You could walk within a hundred feet of my mine and not see it
- The mine is about a mile and a half from a large cave containing a two-room stone house
- There is a small spring below the mine
- The trail to the mine was marked with two small stones stacked atop a larger rock
- There are three peaks to the west
- There is a peak with a hole in it to the south
- From above the mine, Weavers Needle is visible through a saddle that looks like a gun sight
Jacob Waltz’s directions to Dick Holmes, as written in the Holmes Manuscript:
Go to First Water, then Second Water, then take the government trail to San Carlos. Where the trail turns south you will see, over the point of a ridge, a rock standing that looks like a man. (Waltz goes on to claim he carved a face on it with his pick.) This is where I always left the trail.
Go to the left of the trail. Follow up this long ridge and you will come to a saddle. In this saddle is a round Indian ruin of rocks. Go through the saddle and up a long ridge and when you get to the highest point you can look north and see the Four Peaks all lined up to look like one peak. In the other direction you will see a high needle. In the canyon under you is my hidden camp. You can’t get down there because it’s too steep but go to the mouth of the canyon then back. You can find the rock house with very little trouble. You won’t be able to see it until you are right on it. After finding the camp then come back out of the canyon and… (Here is where he omitted the final details on locating the mine.)
You will never be able to find the mine until you find the rock house, as the shaft is completely hidden. A prospector will never find it because there is no ledge in view.
Waltz claimed that $75,000 in gold had already been removed and left in the mine, but warned of a booby trap meant to kill any trespassers. He also claimed the remaining gold was enough to make twenty men millionaires.
