The Legend: In 1971, a young man arrived at Yuma with a story to tell. He had been hiking and
exploring in the Little Horn Mountains north of Aztec. Being a rockhound, he picked up interesting
specimens he found during his explorations. In Yuma, he pulled several golf-ball-sized rocks from his
pack to show a friend. The rocks with a red-brown surface. He told his friend he had found hundreds of
them scattered along the bed of a dry wash, and having never seen any before, he picked some up. The
friend broke one open with a hammer, and to the astonishment of both men, revealed an interior of gold.
The second and third rock yielded the same.
The hiker returned to the Little Horn Mountains several times during the next ten years in search of the
wash containing the red-brown rocks. He was never able to find it.
Somewhere in the Little Horn Mountains, the remote and elusive wash containing the odd gold-filled
rocks continues to wait to be rediscovered.
Behind the Legend: Juan Bautista Alvarado was a governor of California in Spanish days. His son, Jose
Alvarado migrated to the Gila Valley of Arizona, sometime in the early 1870s, where he homesteaded a
piece of ground and ran cattle. Jose Alvarado rode to the Indian camp one day and introduced himself to
the Indians. He found them courteous and rather gentle, and in time came to be friendly with them. From
time to time, he would cut out a young steer, deliver it to the camp, and have it butchered so they would
have fresh meat. Pancho was a warrior of the Tonto Apaches who lived on the San Carlos Indian
Reservation of northeastern Arizona. Among Pancho’s Mexican friends was a certain Jose Alvarado.
Months later, Pancho, along with his wife and young son, appeared at the home of Jose Alvarado.
Pancho explained that he had left the reservation because he could not stand the heat and sickness that
permeated the location. He asked Alvarado for a job and was put to work.
One afternoon, Pancho's son became ill. Jose carried the boy to a nearby mission and turned him over to
the priest to be cared for. The boy recovered, and Pancho allowed him to be baptized. He told Jose that he
owed him a great debt and someday would repay him with riches beyond his wildest imagination.
About the same time, around, 1891, the Gila River flooded and devastated the region. Jose lost
hundreds of cattle, his houses and barns were carried away in the floodwaters. Broken and in despair, Jose
moved his family to Yuma, and Pancho went to work for another rancher.
Poncho’s sense of gratitude being strong, went to Yuma County and located Jose at a little place called
Palomas. Pancho knew where a quantity gold was located, and he offered to take Jose to it. Jose wanted to
take along some friends. Pancho did not like the idea or the looks of the two Mexicans, some accounts put
the number at four, which Jose wanted to bring along, reluctantly, Poncho agreed to continue the trip to
the gold. Poncho was right, the two Mexicans didn't like him and all Indians in general. Trouble started
when the Mexicans refused to eat with him. Pancho took Jose aside and told him he had a mind to kill the
two Mexicans, a sure cure for prejudice. One thing for sure, there would be no gold for them. They might
just as well go back, for Pancho wasn’t going to help those two rats get rich.
The group camped that night at Alamo Spring and left the following morning along what Jose told his
men was a back trail. On the trail, Pancho asked to borrow the rancher's rifle, explaining that he was
going to hunt some bighorn sheep so they would have fresh meat to eat that evening. Pancho directed Jose
and the ranch hands to continue eastward along a dry riverbed. At a certain point, he said, they would
come to a rock cistern. There they were to wait for him.
Two hours later, Pancho approached the three men seated by the rock cistern. He carried a rock the size
of a man's head and threw it on the ground in front of them, instructing Jose to bust it open. The rancher
examined the rock, noting that it had a red, black surface, the color due to the presence of limonite and
hematite both minerals often associated with gold deposits. Jose broke open the rock and was astonished
to find the inside rich with gold.
The four men camped that night at the cistern. Before dawn, Pancho woke Jose and led him some
distance from the camp so he could speak with him in private. He pointed up the wash he had ridden out
of the previous day and told the rancher that about a mile and a half up the wash was a small side wash
where many of the red-brown rocks could be seen scattered along the floor.
By the time the two ranch hands awoke, Pancho was gone. Jose never saw him again. Jose did not tell
his Mexican friends that he knew where it was located, but when he became seriously ill in Yuma, he
called for his son, Jose Alvarado Jr. and told him the entire story of Pancho and the gold.
He gave his son directions to the very rich gold strike in the Little Horn Mountains and told him of the
long-kept secret. Jose Sr. never had a chance to return to the gold, for less one month after returning, Jose
Sr., died.
Ranch duties prevented Jose Jr. from searching for the gold for several years. In 1918, while he was
running a dairy, he finally found the time to mount a search. He traveled along the route described by his
father but became lost several times. He was never able to find Alamo Spring or the cistern. He found
what he said were dozens of washes, but none of them were littered with the red-brown stones described
by his father. Jose Jr. never found the wash with the reddish-black rocks.
My Notes: This could be nothing more than an Indian tale, as the Indians made it a point to tell gold
related stories to the gold hungry white man.
However, Arizona's Little Horn Mountains are located approximately seventy miles northeast of Yuma
and twenty-five miles north of the town of Aztec. In the Little Horn’s, there is a canyon well known to the
Tonto Apaches. It was the source of the gold they used to purchase arms and ammunition in their fight
with the U.S. Army. The Indians claim, lying on the floor of this canyon are hundreds of red rocks that,
when broken open, yield gold.
The group led by Poncho, left Palomas, where Jose Sr. lived, and traveled in a northwesterly direction,
traveling along the Yuma Road, turning north onto the freighting road serving the Kofa and Polaris
mines. After a few miles they veered east through the Kofa Mountains at Engesser Pass. Remember
Alamo Springs, find the cistern, there is a wash, go up the wash a mile and a half to a little side wash on
the right. You may find lots of the red, black rock. Directions are vague but, some map work may pay
off…big time.
I did find that in 1955, Ed Rochester and Harold O. Weight, using the directions obtained from Jose
Alvarado Jr., set out to try to find the gold. They found Alamo Spring noted on several different maps, but
each was in a different location. Asking for advice from old-timers in the area, including Burt Hart and
Bill Keiser of Quartzite, and a man named Livingstone, they rode directly to the spring, only to find out
they had gone to Upper Alamo Spring and the one they sought no longer flowed.
The wash with the gold in it is still out there. A thought, it almost certain there is more than one wash,
you will need to look into all of them. Good Luck and Happy Hunting!!!