San Pedro and San Pablo de Bicuner’s lost gold mission

This story is one of the oldest lost treasure stories in California. The mission San Pedro and San Pablo was set up by the Spanish in 1780 on the rich gold placers of the district of Potholes. It is not really known why the mission was built in this specific area. Some people believe it was because they knew the gold was there and others think they had no idea. What is a known fact is that the Spanish forced the Indians of Yuma to mine the gold for them. The Indians were slaves for several years until they decided they would not take it anymore and slew their Spanish masters and abusers. The Indians made sure to get rid of all of the evidence of the missions and hid the mines. It is said that the gold was possibly buried close by or that it was thrown into the Colorado River, from what legends have said. Another side to this story occurred in the 1830’s when officials from the pueblo of San Diego carried out a big search in order to find the lost gold. When the searchers came back empty handed, they were thrown into jail and accused of having taken the gold! There is pretty much no evidence left of the old mission today.

Black Butte’s gold
There are a lot of tales of lost gold all along this region that have some sort of connection and link with Black Butte. There are some that believe that the Lost Peg Leg Mine was here. There is a story that tells of an Indian woman that came staggering into a railroad crew’s camp that was close to Glamis one day. The woman had had so much exposure from the sun that she died upon getting to the camp. The people that went to help her found a bag full of gold nuggets and were told that she had told some of them before dieing that she had found them close to a black butte.