In 1929, the Spanish teacher Myrtle Love, from the town of
Isleta, New Mexico, west of Texas, who was very interested in old west history,
received a phone call from the El Paso sheriff saying that there was a man
under arrest with a very interesting story to tell.
The man’s name was Race Compton and was arrested when found
sleeping in a rail road freight car. He looked like a vagabond. He told Miss
Love that he was going to get dynamite and excavation equipment so he could go
back to an old cave that had been sealed off by the Indians and presumably
inside contained millions of dollars in gold ingots and gold coins.
Compton said “in 1859, the stage coaches were hard at work
transporting people, mail, promissory notes and some times large sums of gold.
Stations for the stage coaches were established along the
region of the Trans- Pecos for passengers and conductors to eat. One of these
stations was in Eagle Springs, Texas located at the foot of Eagle Mountain,
about 15 miles south of Van Horn and 12 miles north east of Indian Hot Springs.
Big Foot Wallace was a famous adventurer and Texas Ranger.
He was one of the stage coach conductors, along with Joea Peacock who was only
19 but had been involved in several incidents with fugitives and Indians and
had killed a few men.
During these times, bands of Apaches were very active in
their incursions along the Texas territories. Their Chief, Victorio was
commanding the major part of these rebel Indians.
Even thou it was said that Chief Victorio was white and that
he had been kidnapped as a child from Coahuila, Mexico, he had a peculiar
hatred towards the white men.
During one of the stage coach runs, the Apaches attacked and
in some 20 minutes killed two passengers and one of the station attendants. The
horses were stolen and Peacock was hurt in the leg by an arrow and taken
prisoner by the Indians.
The Apaches and their prisoner rode none stop on horse back
to the Tres Castillos Mountains in Chihuahua, Mexico. This is about 20 miles
south of the Rio Grand River where they felt safe from the Texas Rangers, the
Calvary and the Mexican soldiers.
The prisoner’s wound was not bad, but it was taken care of
by a young Indian woman named Juanita, presumed to be Chief Victorio’s
daughter. Victorio tried to kill the prisoner several times but Juanita kept
him from it because she had fallen in love with the prisoner.
At night the young Indian woman and the white prisoner would
get together in secret. She tried to get him to marry her, but he was very
cautious for he knew that she was the only reason he was still alive.
Finally Peacock said he would marry her only if she would
tell him were Chief Victorio had hidden the treasure. He was intrigued by what
he saw, the Indians were carrying off gold ingots probably stolen from a train
robbery and taking them to Mexico to trade for rifles and ammunition.
Juanita told him that the gold was being stored in a cave in
the Eagle Mountains, close to were Peacock had been taken prisoner. She told
him he could get there by going thru Hot Indian Springs. She also told him that
the entrance was well hidden in the rocks and that he had to crawl on all fours
to get in because the entrance was very small. Juanita told him that she had
gone to the cave many times with her father and that she remembered seeing
dozens of gold ingots, many bags with gold coins and chests full of religious
artifacts and jewelry stashed away in the back of the cave. Her father had
mentioned to her that it would take some 50 mules to transport all that had
been stolen and hidden in the cave for years.
Afterwards, when Victorio and several of his warriors were
taking gold ingots to trade for guns, they were spotted by soldiers on the old
Indian path. One Indian woman was hurt and two soldiers died that day.
After this, Victorio was afraid that the location and
contents of the cave would be investigated and discovered. So they got out what
they were going to need and sealed off the small entrance with rocks making it
look like part of the same mountain. Even so, Juanita told her lover she could
find the entrance to the cave with no problem. That night, Peacock planned his
escape thinking that with all that he knew he could find the cave without the
help of anyone.
Finally, one day, Victorio and his men left on an incursion
into Chihuahua, leaving only women, children and the elderly in camp. With
Juanita’s help, Peacock got a horse and water. He promised the young Indian he
would be back for her as soon as possible. The prisoner left for the mountains
and crossed the desert. After several days, he finally arrived at Eagle
Springs.
It is a long story. Peacock after resting, decided to begin
the search with out any luck. Probably because sometimes what one person
describes, is not what another person sees. Discouraged, he returned to his old
job with the stage coaches while the Indians were being eliminated by the Texas
Rangers and the Mexican soldiers. Finally, in the Tres Castillos Mountains, in
June of 1880, Victorio, some 60 warriors and 18 women, including Juanita, were
killed. All of those who knew of the location of the hidden cave where gone,
the enormous treasure was lost.
In 1895, Peacock met Peace Compton that was a gold
prospector and because of the interest of both of them for gold, the ex Apache
prisoner told him of Victorio’s cave. They spent 15 years looking for the
treasure. In 1915 Peacock died. Compton kept the ranch they had and continued
looking for the cave, although he sometimes had to work to be able to buy
dynamite and food.
In the end, he told Miss Love that as soon as he got out of
jail, he would go back to the mountains to dynamite the cave he had finally
found, approximately 5 miles east of Hot Indian Springs and south of the old
Indian path.
He described the place to be about one day on horse back, south
of Sierra Blanca and a half day west of Hot Indian Springs. He added to Love
that a torrential rainfall had removed some of the rocks that covered the
entrance to the cave and that he only had to dynamite the rocks that were left.
Compton was never heard of after leaving jail. An old
resident of Sierra Blanca that had met him, said that he had died of a heart
attack on his way back to the mountains and that he had been buried in Sierra
Blanca.
The history of the lost treasure of Victorio is still alive.
Everything suggests that the gold ingots, the bags of gold coins and the chests
of jewelry are still in the mountains. What you need is a sense of
adventure, good research, patience, and last but not least, good detection
equipment.
Find out more at http://www.metaldetection.net/
