Spanish Treasure-Seekers in Central Texas
One of the most important aspects of treasure hunting that I always stress to beginning and longtime treasure hunters is the importance of reading REAL books and researching the types of treasure you’re hoping to find. After 57 years in this pursuit, I’ve learned that if one wants to improve your skills, being willing to spend A LOT of time reading everything you can about the treasure you want to find AND getting out in the field and testing what you’ve learned is essential. Without solid research and field work, one’s chances of finding large treasure caches, depositories, lost mines, etc. are almost nil.
That’s why, this year, I began to rebuild our Central Texas Treasure Club’s research Library for our dues-paid Members to use. CTTC Member Tommy Faught has contributed several of his own treasure hunting books to our Library. I picked one of them up last night and began reading it. It’s J. Frank Dobie’s Legends of Texas, Volume 1, Lost Mines and Buried Treasure. It was originally written in 1924. Our Club also donated a copy of this book to the Brownwood Public Library to loan to their patrons several years ago.
Long ago, I made a habit of taking handwritten notes of important information that I find in books and it’s a very good habit to have! When you read something from a real book, not a digital book, it’s easy to write down important quotes and then store them in your hard copy research files for later reference. The best thing is that when you write something down by hand, it’s been proven that the information is retained in your memory for a very long time. The following quotes from the Dobie book is information that jumped out of the pages at me because they deal with my longtime interest in Spanish treasure right here in rural central Texas. I’ll share these passages with you but there are more that pertain to my current searches that you’ll have to read the book for yourself to learn what they are!
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Page 18 – “In the early fifties (1850s), Texas newspapers carried items on ‘Gold’ as well as on ‘Cotton’, etc. and there was a mining rush up the Colorado (River) and its western tributaries…”
Page 21 – ‘But the mines of Cerro del Amagre are so numerous…that I pledge to give the inhabitants of the province of Texas one each, without any man’s being prejudiced in the measurements.’ Thus reported Bernardo de Miranda as a result of his prospecting tour for minerals in the Llano country in 1756. And partly ‘because an opulence and abundance of silver and gold was the principle foundation upon which the kingdom of Spain rested’…as the royal viceroy of Mexico took occasion to remind his subordinates, and immediate establishment of mission and presidio on the San Saba River was undertaken and the mining enterprise presumably launched.”
Jay Longley, President, Central Texas Treasure Club
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