[1] In Hunter’s Frontier Magazine, October, 1916, I, 6, 177–179. Further testimony to the existence of “the Sublett Mine,” given by an old buffalo hunter and prospector named Dixon, is printed in Frontier Times, March, 1924, Vol. I, No. 6, pp. 1–3. Dixon heard of the mine in 1879 from his sweetheart, daughter of a Mescalero Apache chief. [↑]
LOST COPPER MINES AND SPANISH GOLD, HASKELL COUNTY
By R. E. Sherrill
[Haskell, King, and Stonewall counties all corner near the junction of the main forks of the Brazos, and this legend told by Mr. Sherrill should be read in conjunction with the one immediately following told by Mr. Bertillion. It makes no difference that one legend has to do with a copper mine and the other with a lead mine. One could probably find another that has to do with a silver mine in the same vicinity. I must think that both legends go back to the same tradition. And the tradition of a mine—some kind of a mine—up the Brazos is very old. It began with Spanish credence in an Indian story; the earliest American settlers in Texas carried it on. In 1774, years after Los Almagres mines were abandoned, De Mézières reported men gone in search of mines which Indians said were “in the direction of the Brazos de Dios.”[1] In 1823 Daniel Shipman and two other men, guided by “an old Red River hunter,” went up the Brazos River to Flint Creek (which I have been unable to identify) on the west side in search of “an inexhaustible silver mine.”[2] It proved to be red clay. In 1836 the Reverend David B. Edward was strong in his belief in a mountain of iron on the headwaters of the Brazos—as well as in an abundance of gold and silver on the branches of the Colorado.[3]—Editor.]
As far back as the first settlement of white men in this part of the state, a tradition has been floating around through the country that at some indefinitely early date Spanish prospectors worked copper mines a little above the junction of the two main branches of the Brazos River, the Salt Fork and the Double Mountain Fork, in what was formerly a part of Haskell County but is now included in Stonewall County. Furthermore, they are supposed to have had, and left here, a vast quantity of gold.
“SPIDER ROCK” UNCOVERED BY GOLD HUNTERS IN HASKELL COUNTY
The “Spider Rock” (or “Plat Rock”) was found eight or ten inches under soil, on a small hill south of the Salt Fork of the Brazos River, in 1907 or 1908. The diagram as reproduced above was cut into the rock, except as indicated. The shaded center of the diagram represents a copper plate, on top of which lay a copper key pointing north and south. The circle with a dot in it at the lower left represents a hole plugged up with a kind of stopper rock, in the top of which was scooped a depression about the size of a cherry. The diamond shaped figure to the lower right represents a copper plate fitted and cemented into the rock. The letter H almost above the copper diamond was the letter that the Mexican goat herder said would lead him to the treasure after the “Plat Rock” had been found. The angular lane of little circles to the lower right, however, gave the finders of the rock the most concern. They interpreted it as representing a tunnel that led to the treasure sought. Each one of the little circles as drawn on the diagram is for a depression in the rock filled with some kind of substance: one depression had in it charcoal, one red dirt or clay, one yellow shale, and on through varying kinds of earth substance. Various other figures on the rock are not given here.
Various people have come from unknown parts hunting this supposed treasure, but no special headway was made until, in [[74]]1907 or 1908, a large old gentleman, whose name I cannot now recall, suddenly appeared in our sleepy little town from somewhere on the Mexican border and quietly began inquiring about the topography of the country and the tradition of Spanish treasure. Having learned all that he could, he took into his confidence a few select men and explained to them that he had gathered certain definite information from reliable Mexicans on the Rio Grande, and that he proposed to search for the key to the hidden wealth.