According to those who search for buried treasure in Arizona, there’s a fortune hidden beneath the floors of Tumacacori, the old mission near Tubac. The legends say that the church was once not only a place of worship, but also a mill and smelter for a gold and silver mining operation run by Jesuit missionaries in the first half of the nineteenth century.

The prospectors’ hopes hinge on two scenarios. In one, the missionaries learned they were being exiled back to Spain so they loaded nearly 3,000 burros with precious metal, carried the treasure to the mine, then buried the entrance in the hope that they’d come back and retrieve it. But they were never allowed to leave Spain, so now an estimated $25 million in gold and silver may lie hidden beneath the sacred ground.