Lost Yuma Indian Gold

There are a few different accounts of this story however the main idea of the story remains the same in all of them. Around the 1800’s a local in the town of Yuma took in one of the young members of the Yuma Indians and was very kind to him. As the months passed by the Indian boy found out that white men considered gold to be of great value. Therefore, the boy who was grateful for the white mans kindness, decided to tell him a treasure tale. The Indian boy said that when he was a little boy, he and his father had been going along an old Indian Trail between Picacho and Potholes right after there had been a bad rainstorm. The father decided to leave the trail and started to go up a wash. The boy explained that the bed of the wash had a big vein of ore that had fine wire gold. The storm had made the vein become evident and the father indicated they were to cover it up again. The man did not touch the gold and placed it over the rocks until it was unrecognizable. He told the boy that this was the source of gold of the Yumas and that it was the job of the members to protect it from the white man from ever finding it. After telling this to the white man, the Indian boy proceeded to take the man up to the Colorado River to an area that was called Ferguson’s Flat. Then they continued walking for another three or four miles. They were walking when all of a sudden the boy that was showing the white man the way collapsed onto the ground. Apparently the young Indian boy was ill and the journey was too much for him. The man took the boy back to Yuma and put him in a hospital and then around one week later the boy disappeared from the hospital. Nobody knows if the Indians had kidnapped the boy to prevent him from telling the man where the gold was or if he simply ran away due to fear of being killed by the tribe. The man went back to the area where the boy had lead him and tried to find ore vein but was never able to.