The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine

Death of Adolph Ruth

The Lost Dutchman’s Mine legend contains many mysterious deaths stories, but the first one that gathered the attention was death of amateur explorer and treasure hunter Adolph Ruth. Ruth was chasing after many legends about lost mines in the American West, but the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine story was very close to his heart. His son, Erwin Ruth, met a man named Pedro Gonzales, who claimed to be descended from the Peralta family (that reportedly owned the legendary mine). Erwin Ruth saved Gonzales from imprisonment and in return was offered informations about the mine and even some old maps. Erwin told that story to his father and in 1931, at the age of 66, Adolph Ruth set out to locate the Peralta mine. After arrival to the area he stayed at the ranch of Tex Barkely, who tried to convince Ruth to drop the whole idea since the Superstition Mountains are dangerous to be explored, especially for alone travellers.

Ruth ignored the advice and set out to the mountains for 2 weeks, but never returned. The authorities did organized the search party, but found no trace of Ruth. Several months later a skull was found in the Superstition Mountains with two bullet holes in it. The examination proved it to be the skull of Adolph Ruth, the holes were made by a shotgun or high-powered rifle from very close range. Two months later rest of the Ruth’s remains were found about a mile away from the skull, they were identified by the metal pins he had mending the broken bones from previous trips. Also his pistol was found at the scene (no shells were missing from the pistol), Ruth’s chequebook with note where he claimed to have found the mine that ended with words "Veni, vidi, vici", but there was no map around. In some versions of the story there was a mysterious note in the personal belongings of Ruth that read "About 200 feet across from cave", but this part does sound suspicious since he wrote notes in the chequebook, so why would he made a different note and put it somewhere else.

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