The search for buried treasure
 |
| 1821 Gold Coin, Similar to the coin found in 1933 by Lawrence Norris on Webster Street |
Buried treasure — those two words inspire mental images of Indiana Jones discovering the Ark of the Covenant or those guys on a TV reality show, endlessly digging for treasure on Oak Island in Nova Scotia.
Did you know Kerr County and the surrounding area has its own lore and legend involving hidden treasure?
Before you go digging up random places around town, I need to caution you: People have been looking for these treasures for more than a century, and nothing has ever been found. It is also illegal to use metal detectors or dig holes in the ground of Kerrville area parks. Get permission before journeying across or digging into someone’s property, or you might find yourself in trouble.
“Legends and Lore of the Texas Hill Country” is a small book of fun local stories written by William Campion decades ago. I love a good tall tale, and this book is full of them.
I’ve researched a few of the legends in the book regarding Kerrville. One story is an Ingram version of the legend of La Llorona. I researched the name given of an unwed teenaged mother who committed suicide after causing the death of her infant. According to the book, her suicide and the death of her child left her cursed to wander the banks of the Guadalupe, wailing over the loss of her child.
According to my research, the subject named in the story was in fact a local teacher who lived to be over 100, so take the stories I am about to tell you, and any legend, with a grain of salt.
Treasure hunters used to swarm to the area around Bandera Pass for years. The height of the searches took place between 1900 and 1940. Even my grandfather tried his luck a few times in the area. The reason for the interest in treasure hunting in the pass involve several versions of a legend about lost Spanish Gold. Several of the versions are published in Campion’s book.
One legend states that ghost lights can sometimes be seen in and around Bandera Pass. The lights are reported to be torches carried by ghostly Spanish conquistadores, who were killed in an Apache raid hundreds of years ago. The conquistadores were traveling with silver and other riches from the New World and were able to hide their hoard from the Apaches before they were all killed.
If you see the ghost lights on Bandera Pass, it is the conquistadors making sure their treasure is safe.
Another version of the legend goes that the treasure on Bandera Pass was hidden by bandits who took the gold from the Spaniards. The bandits stashed the gold somewhere near Bandera Pass, either in Kerr or Bandera counties, intending to come back for the stolen goods at a later time. For some reason, the bandits were never able to reclaim the goods, and they remain hidden somewhere in the area.
“Kerr County Texas, 1856-1956,” by Bob Bennett, mentions that one of the early settlers in Kerrville, Henry Tatum, buried $10,000 worth of gold on his property to keep it safe during the Civil War. Both
died during a small pox epidemic in 1872, and they died without telling anyone where their riches were hidden.
According to the book, treasure seekers spent a lot of time digging up the property in the years after Tatum’s death, and nothing was ever found.
Another (unnamed) family between Ingram and Hunt has its own legend about an ancestor hiding gold bullion in a cave on his property, but the descendants who still live on the property have had no luck in finding the treasure.
Tales like these spark the imagination and make you wonder “what if” you happened to find hidden treasure on your own property?
Back in 1933, Lawrence Norris, a resident of Kerrville, could have answered that question. Norris was hoeing his garden when he spotted something glittering in the dirt. The hoe had uncovered a Spanish coin, dated 1821. The discovery prompted many of his neighbors on Webster Street to start digging in their own yards.
So, is there treasure hidden in Kerrville? You never know what might be hiding under your feet.
  |
| Finds my husband made while metal detecting our yard include military insignia and a 1930s condom Tin |
My husband, a metal detectorist, did find a hoard of treasure in our own backyard. Beneath the dirt, not far from downtown, he’s found several old beer pull tops, the remnants of a Dick Tracy toy gun, a gold and diamond ring (that I wear to replace the wedding ring I lost), two 1930s condom tins, a 1940 mercury dime, a silver-plated spoon, roofing tacks, 1958 license plates — front and back — a silver tie tack with the initials D.L., a rabies vaccination tag, remnants of shotgun shells and two musket balls.
We’ve both found countless bottle caps and current-day quarters, nickels and pennies.
The discoveries my husband has made in the rocky soil tell their own tale of Kerrville’s past. Before our little part of town started sprouting houses, it was an open pasture and scrubland between downtown and the Methodist Encampment.
The road I live on now didn’t have a name in those days. There were just tire ruts in the
caliche. The caliche track served as a cut-through from town to the encampment, but also gave access to a convenient hunting ground (musket balls) and served as a lover’s lane (condom tins).
The most interesting find he’s made in our yard was a cache of military insignia. There were several pairs of oak leaf insignia (denoting the rank of Major), a belt buckle and a U.S. pin.
Our best guess as to how all that ended up in our yard is that a young boy and previous resident of our house, probably the same child who had the Dick Tracy toy gun, considered the military insignia to be his own treasure and hid it in the ground to keep it safe.
Comments
Post a Comment