Ol’ Ma Nature’s rough hands couldn’t have created a better place on this earth to hide a treasure than right here in Arizona. It’s also a good place to lose one and we’ve got more lost mines here in the heart of Arizona than politicians got plans.

Most of these mines have a history of being found then lost again. The stories stay pretty much the same—prospector finds rich treasure, thinks he has memorized the exact spot, and then leaves. Upon his return, his mind starts playin’ tricks on him, and he can’t relocate the elusive strike.

In the 1870s a pair of itinerant sourdoughs followed a Yavapai Indian into the narrow canyons east of today’s Black Canyon City. Earlier, in Phoenix, they’d seen him pay for his supplies with a handful of nuggets and were determined to find the Indians mine and claim the riches for themselves. Some¬where along the Agua Fria, they lost him, and, while trying to pick up his trail, they stumbled upon a granite outcropping laced with pure gold.