Spanish Trail Monuments

Discuss information about the Lost Dutchman Mine
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von_kidd
Greenhorn
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:36 am

Spanish Trail Monuments

Post by von_kidd »

For those of you who are familiar with Charles Kenworthy's book about Spanish trail monuments in the US, I can tell you that most of the trail monuments he has pictures of in his book are located in the Superstitions. (A couple or so of his pictures of other monuments are touched up, and he exaggerates about the hurculean lengts the Spaniards went to in building some of them, even if they did use slave labor.) I have been going into the Superstitions since 1993, but don't remember exactly where I saw most of them because I didn't know what they were until after I got Kenworthy's book. They were just interestingly shaped rocks to me.
The trail monument in the top picture on the cover of his book, the one with the Iindian head, is found about a quarter mile in from the First Water Trailhead, maybe 200 yards down the Dutchman Trail from where it forks off of the First Water trail. It is on the south side of the Dutchman Trail on a low ridge with boulders scattered on it.
The king of Spain had a standardized system of permenant trail monuments that were to be set up by expeditions if they found anything valuable. The semi-permenant trail markers such as marked saguaro cacti were made by the later Mexican expeditions into the Superstitions. Evidently they didn't know about the Spanish trail monuments, because some of the trails into the mountains were double marked with both Mexican and Spanish monuments!
The clue to the Dutchman's mine about a rock that looks like a man standing in the bushes also sounds like a Spanish trail monument. I have read about one such Spanish trail monument found down in Mexico.
The Spanish trail monuments were to end a certain number of leagues from the mine or mines, and from there you had to have a map to find and uncover the mines. These mines were always carefully covered over and hidden. They were also protected by death traps. (Kenworthy also wrote another book, "Death Traps to Treasure" describing these.) Some of the trail monuments the Spanish erected in the Superstitions probably no longer exist.

Von Kidd
"The treasure is in the searching."
NeedleMan
Greenhorn
Posts: 46
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:49 am

Post by NeedleMan »

First I would like to welcome you Von- Kidd to the LDM forum!

You are right with regards to Kenworthy's work. But his information was incomplete and lacked the most important elements. He even admitted to that fact somewhere.

The Royal Trails were set up to confuse Geologists and Treasure Hunters, not to take one to the final sites. You had to know Free Masonry like old Jacob Waltz did in order to find the locations of not only the main campsites but also the end mine sites which do not require any paper or pig skin maps to find.

They left everything out in the field and if you know the proper way to read the clues you can find the right areas to look without no stinking old maps.

Mainly the Walkers Trails.

The Keys to that are hidden by the Horses ass.

Needleman
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