I'm Welcome to 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories, and Mysteries.

Today's episode is called The Legend of the Lost Dutchman Mine,

and it has all the ingredients needed for a great legend,

a condemned man's dying wish, insatiable greed,

fabulous treasure and gold,

an old Apache legend, murder, treachery, a treasure map,

an old German Dutch prospector named Jacob Waltz,

a stubborn old man named Adolf Ruth,

who just refused to quit searching and paid for it with his life,

and the long-since sand-covered tracks of many men and some women

who have disappeared in the superstition mountains of Arizona

in an effort to find a missing treasure pit called the Lost Dutchman Mine.

This episode is an attempt to unravel the mysteries and stories behind the deaths that occurred between 1840 and 1931,

with special attention placed upon the questionable death of Adolf Ruth in the

Superstition Mountains in 1931, as there are a lot of things there that just don't add up with that one,

and we'll invite you to submit ideas after looking at all the evidence and then presenting our theory.

This legend is one of the most incredible tales of treasure ever told, so

buckle up. We're headed for the superstition mountains in Arizona. The superstitions are the

largest of the mountain ranges surrounding Phoenix and visible from many miles away along the

street roads through the suburbs east of Mesa.

These mountains rise steeply above the flat desert to a high point of 5,000 feet,

and they're characterized by sheer-sighted, jagged volcanic peaks,

...