Why there are no photos of the Lost Dutchman


If you're an Arizona history fan, you've heard of the Lost Dutchman. He was an old prospector who found a fabulous gold mine in the Superstition Mountains. And yes, he really existed. His name was Jacob Waltz, and you can even go visit his grave at the Pioneers' Cemetery at 15th Avenue and Jefferson. But no one really knows exactly what he looked like, and for good reason.

I collect old photos of Phoenix and the people who lived there, and since I have photos of just about everyone from John Alsap to Dwight Heard, sometimes people ask me if I have a photo of the Lost Dutchman. And when I say that I don't, even though a lot of people have claimed to have it, I can tell that they're disappointed with me. But it doesn't really surprise me. Time-travel with me.

Yes, there was a lot of gold around territorial Phoenix. Those aren't just tall tales! The really big stuff was northwest of Phoenix, especially around Wickenburg, but the entire Salt River Valley was worth taking a look for gold. And people found it!

The Lost Dutchman would have been pretty typical of the type of man that was constantly searching for gold. Now, hold your nose and let's walk up to one of these guys. Yeah, they weren't too concerned with their personal appearance! Chances are pretty good that they're wearing the same clothes that they slept in, under the stars, for months and months. Hopefully you're getting a better picture of Jacob Waltz in your mind. Now imagine how unlikely it would have been that he would have posed for a photograph. Personally, I can't imagine him going into a photography studio in Phoenix and smiling for the camera. And if anyone had shown up anywhere near him with one of them-thar new-fangled Kodak cameras (not that it was likely), they probably would have been lucky not to get shot at!

So, since I'm a volunteer at the Pioneers' Cemetery Association, and I supply photos of the famous Phoenix people buried there, I drew a cartoon of the Lost Dutchman for them. It's the best I can do.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more in the future, along with a LOT of cool old photos of Phoenix, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! Your pledge makes this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more