Money Hill is a sand dune reputed to be filled with a fortune of old coins, silver, gold and jewelry, hidden by John Singer. Some say that the real Money Hill is near Padre Beach, others say at the north end of Padre Island, and still others hold that it is on neighboring Mustang Island. One version has it that Singer and his young son rowed six miles up Laguna Madre from their Rancho Santa Cruz home, now referred to as “Lost City,” to bury the fortune in a dune marked by two small oak trees. Regardless of which story you care to accept, the Money Hill containing the Singer fortune never has been found.
When the Singer family and their ranch hands fled during the Civil War, it was said they buried eighty-five thousand dollars in a screwtop jar along with Mrs. Singer’s emerald necklace, under the foundation of the ranch home. This, too, has never been found, although Lost City itself was discovered in 1931 by Charles Hardin and a treasure hunting party. Here is his story:
I was walking across Padre Island one morning from the Gulf beach toward the Laguna, when I saw two sword handles in the sand. The blades were crossed, and the rust had welded them together. One of them had the initials “J. H.” inscribed on the handle. We started digging around. Everywhere we looked we found items of interest. They were real tokens of the past.
Several English and Spanish coins and a wealth of silverware were found by Hardin’s group. When the silverware was sent to New York, examined and traced, it was found to be made of coin silver by a firm that had gone out of business in 1800. Just a few inches under the sand was unearthed a blacksmith’s shop, a graveyard, and campaign buttons from Taylor’s Army.
Hardin explains for future treasure hunters, that although he knows the surface has changed, he is certain that the spot can easily be located again. His directions are, “Start at the jetty on the southmost tip of Padre Island, and drive up the Gulf beach exactly twenty-six miles. Then walk a little less than one-eighth of a mile, about two hundred yards, back up into the dunes.”
Lost City was not a city as such, but the site of various settlements that were established over the centuries by different inhabitants. Old Padre Balli, you will recall, established his Santa Cruz Ranch here. Here it was also that General Taylor camped on his way to the Mexican War. John Singer used it as his home site, and cattle rancher Patrick Dunn also used Lost City as his headquarters.
In 1958, Charles Hardin participated in the rediscovery of Lost City with Frank Tolbert, a Dallas newspaperman. Hardin was then sixty-eight years old. They uncovered the foundations of Lost City, which were composed of monster mahogany timbers fastened together with ancient ships’ iron hardware. They found a pirate-style pistol and other parts of eighteenth and nineteenth century firearms, and the head of a tomahawk. Still a mystery, however, is the eighty-five thousand dollar fortune buried in the huge screw-top jar of Singer’s.
Five great ocean currents meet off the coast of Padre Island to toss back onto the white shores many interesting objects from the sea. Some of the mellowed rare woods, eagerly sought by collectors, are giant mahogany, or Spanish cedar logs, cypress, cottonwood, walnut, bamboo, gum and teak. An interesting driftwood museum has been started at Padre Beach. Coconuts, probably from the West Indies, are found at times by the thousands.
Not long ago, a man idly kicked a can along the sandy beach and, after a few moments, tiring of his sport, kicked it aside. The man behind him picked up the can and found it contained three hundred dollars worth of old coins. A woman, noticing an oddly designed box, opened it and discovered it was full of jewels. One hunter received eight hundred dollars for two silver bars and an interesting old one hundred-fifty foot chain, of the type used on ocean going vessels of years long past.
These hard-packed sands have yielded some shells of such importance that they are now in the Smithsonian Institute. Many shells are merrily named: sea pearls, sea hearts, starfish, sea pansies, sea biscuits, sharp eyes, baby’s foot, jingle shells, angel wings, periwinkles and sand dollars (round and flat as a coin). When a sand dollar is dried and opened, you behold five tiny structures which perfectly resemble flying seagulls. The main shell banks, Big Shell and Little Shell, are twelve miles apart. They are oceans of tiny marine shells deposited along the beach. Big Shell differs only in that it is made up of larger shells. Driving is very tricky business in this area.