Free E-book “Touring Arizona 2010″

Talking about ghosts can be fun. Even playing with the idea of finding a ghost can be exciting. But, what if you actually find a ghost?

Ghosts! Things that go bumb, rattle, and bump in the dark. You don’t really want to meet one, but it’s kinda fun to think they really do exist.

Are you sure you actually want to meet one?

Ok. If that’s what you want. Here goes….last chance to change your mind….Ok, you talked me into it. Let’s go find some ghosts.

Arizona is a great place to start. We’ve got ghosts in old ghost towns, ghosts in old ghost towns turned artist communities. Ghosts in haunted mountains. We even have ghost tours. Let’s start exploring this State for those supernatural critters.

Arizona and ghosts. Where do you start? Everyone knows the real Wild West happened right here in Arizona (at least, much of it did), so let’s start with the Wild West and Ghosts. They had to have ghosts back then too. Didn’t they? Sure they did. Everyone was superstitious back then, so people probably saw ghosts everywhere they looked.

Superstitious…..that’s it! The Superstition mountains! Just the name means lots of ghosts. That has to be a great place to start.

The Superstition mountains!

You’ve got to start with the Apache. To the Apache, the Superstitions are a sacred place. It’s the home of their “Thunder God.”
And, that Thunder God did not welcome any trespassers. Only the Apache themselves were welcome in the Superstitions.

This Thunder God was so powerful and dangerous, the other local tribes stayed far away from his home. Those foolhardy enough to enter the Superstitions seldom came back out.

Then came the Europeans.

The first was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, a Spanish Conquistador. He was here looking for the seven cities of gold the Aztecs told him about. When he got here, the Pima Tribe told him of all the gold in the Superstitions. Only problem was, the Pima weren’t about to go into that mountain range. Francisco was on his own.

Well, gold was what he was after, and gold was what he was going to get! He packed up his Conquistadors and started into the Superstitions. Almost imediately, he ran into problems. His men began to vanish! Anybody that strayed from the group simply disappeared and were never seen again. Well, not quite. A few were found again. At least, their bodies were. They had all been badly mutilated, and their heads were cut off.

As you can guess, this highly spooked the surviving conquistadors. Those that got out of the Superstition mountains refused to go back in. None of them found any gold.

The Spanish Peralta Mine

It’s now 1845, and Don Miguel Peralta showed up. He had heard of all the gold Coronado was looking for, and had to have some for himself. Peralta’s luck was a little better than Coronado’s. Peralta actually found gold. He found a very rich vein of gold. It was much more than he could haul out by himself, so he went back to Sonora, Mexico (his home town) and gathered up some men and equipment to work the mine.

He hauled out a fortune in pure gold.

Then he ran into the same problem Coranado had. The Apache (I’m assuming those killing Coronado’s men were Apache….Who knows…it could have been ghosts).
The Superstition Mountains were still a sacred area to the Apache, and they got real tired of all these prospectors digging around in their area. In 1848, the Apache decided to run everyone out of their mountain.

Lucky for Peralta, he got wind of the Apache, grabbed all the gold he could pack out and was leaving for Sonora, Mexico. He had every intention of returning once the Apache cooled off, so he completely concealed the mine making it impossible to find.

Then Peralta’s luck ran out. The Apache found his pack train before they could escape The Superstitions, and killed the entire company.
For years after that, dead burros were found still carrying bags of gold, but the mine itself could not be found.

It’s now 1865 and Fort McDowell was established in hopes of controling the Apache. The Apache still fought the whites over the Superstition Mountains. The Apache didn’t like the white settlers, and the white settlers didn’t like the Apache, so a lot of people on both sides died violent deaths. The President of that time, Abraham Lincoln, decided enough was enough and created a sanctuary for the Apache along the Verde River. He then called a halt to the fighting.

The Blind-folded Doctor

And then, Dr. Abraham Thorne showed up. He was the army doctor at Fort McDowell. His attitude toward the Apache was very different than most of the settlers. He did his best to help them rather than eliminate them. He spent a lot of his time caring for their sick and injured.

It’s now 1870 and Dr. Thorne was highly respected by the Apache. They considered him a friend. Several of the Apache elders offered to show Dr. Thorne where he could find lots of gold, only he couldn’t know where it was at. The Apache elders would only show him the gold if he was blindfloded on the trip.

Of course, he agreed, so the elders took him into The Superstition Mountains. When they removed the blindfold, he was in a canyon. Piled up in front of him was gold. The elders let Dr. Thorne gather all he could carry, then brought him back home. He sold his gold for $6,000. Not bad for a single days work!

And then, there’s the Dutchman. But, that’s a story for the next post.

If you want to explore this haunted Superstition Mountain, check out these tour companies.

Vaughan’s Southwest Custom Tours
http://www.southwesttours.com/
Phoenix, AZ 1-800-513-1381

Detours
http://detoursaz.com
Phoenix or Flagstaff 1-866-438-6877

Arizona Outdoors & Nature Books

Tags: Superstition Mountains