Gold Treasure Tales in
Toulumne County

It was said that around half a mile east of Columbia there is a buried iron kettle that is full of gold coins. It is said that this gold belonged to an old man that was the owner of a ranch in the area. Whenever the old man needed to pay one of his bills he would take out his iron kettle full of coins. Almost everybody knew about his big stash of gold so its no wonder someone tried to rob the gold coins from the old man. The thief killed the old man but was never able to find the gold. Nothing appoints the mark where the gold could be now except for some debris where the buildings of the ranch were once located. There are a lot of tales of lost rich gold bearing quartz around Big Oak Flat.

It was said that one of the ledges was uncovered by a road crew when they were working on the private road to a mine. Supposedly the men hid the ledge because their idea was to get to it later on. However, they were never able to. One of the men died and supposedly the other man simply left and promised that nobody would be able to get ahold of the gold.

Another ledge was supposedly found by a hunter during the fall of 1923. It is said that he marked the location of the ledge and then went back into the town. Before he was able to go back to his secret spot, heavy snow started to fall from the sky. The hunter was finally able to go back in May, however, the snow and the winter season had wiped and destroyed all the markings the hunter had made. The hunter continued to look for his ledge until the day he died in 1927.

In Columbia it is said that a prospector buried $100,000 worth of gold in his name in his mine and then hid the entrance way. The prospector was found dead in his camp with a letter on top of his body that he was writing to a relative in Portugal. The letter of the prospector talked about the story. Supposedly this man was sick and people believe he died before finishing his letter. No directions were included in the letter as to where the gold ledge could be found.