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Images of America: Arizona
Apache Junction and the Superstition Mountains
In pioneer lore, the Lost Dutchman's Mine remains an intriguing mystery of the Old West. What became Apache Junction in the Salt River Valley was already an established home for prehistoric Native Americans and the Apache tribe, when it was further settled and cultivated by Spanish and Mexican expeditions, American wagon trains, mountain men, and the U.S. military in the late 19th century. But Apache Junction became legendary when German immigrant Jacob Waltz discovered a secret gold mine. Thousands of prospectors traversed the "crooked top" Superstition Mountains in search of this treasure, enriching the area's history and leading to the development of a unique community that has endured and grown alongside the famous legend.
- GenresHistory
130 pages, Hardcover
First published May 29, 2006
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2019
The Lost Dutchman Mine & the legends of the Superstition Mountains are so cool! So glad I could visit.
January 9, 2015
I'm not sure I know of a more sustained story of greed and murder stretching across the years. Those old Wild West 'antics' just make you sad even when they have the same veneer as Victorian sepia prints, but they sure ain't so palatable when taking place in the late 1950s.
All of it is set against the backdrop of the magnificent Sonoran Desert, and part of me just can't understand how such beauty and its clean, if fierce, struggle for life didn't straighten all these people out. It's a particularly human madness, this lust for gold, it doesn't make sense in the desert.
Of course the greed and murder all started with the conquest of Arizona first by Spain, and then by the U.S. (stripping both Spanish land grants and ancestral tribal lands) -- structural, expansionary greed backed by the geopolitics of nations, a mixture of armies and missionaries and people desperate to build a better life all come together to conquer and colonise. Any amount of violence occurring after that can hardly be surprising on this bedrock of force used to confer rights. This is what is left out of most accounts of the west along with Jane Eppinga's Apache Junction and the Superstition Mountains, upon which most of the following is based. Nothing about this death-dealing race to mineral wealth is natural, it is rather twisted around a sordid history of genocide and a larger seizure of land and resources.
Eppinga's book is quite an amazing collection of photographs with detailed captions as are most of the 'Images of America' series, but there is less introduction here than in others and some of the captions a little repetitive. I wished it had been a little more chronological, instead it jumps around though the content is essentially all the same whether placed in chapters titled 'Coronado's Children' or 'Miners and Madmen'. There is page after page of weathered old men (and one or two women) who walked the Superstition mountains in search of gold.
There were multiple murders in these hills, and the book covers a couple versions of the stories surrounding them and the Lost Dutchman's Mine -- for more, and pictures of the mountains, the museum and additional thoughts take a look here.
There's a chapter on the so-called 'Dons' as well as on building the Apache Trail (!) and Roosevelt Dam, and a final chapter on the Superstition Mountain Historical Society and Museum.
All of it is set against the backdrop of the magnificent Sonoran Desert, and part of me just can't understand how such beauty and its clean, if fierce, struggle for life didn't straighten all these people out. It's a particularly human madness, this lust for gold, it doesn't make sense in the desert.
Of course the greed and murder all started with the conquest of Arizona first by Spain, and then by the U.S. (stripping both Spanish land grants and ancestral tribal lands) -- structural, expansionary greed backed by the geopolitics of nations, a mixture of armies and missionaries and people desperate to build a better life all come together to conquer and colonise. Any amount of violence occurring after that can hardly be surprising on this bedrock of force used to confer rights. This is what is left out of most accounts of the west along with Jane Eppinga's Apache Junction and the Superstition Mountains, upon which most of the following is based. Nothing about this death-dealing race to mineral wealth is natural, it is rather twisted around a sordid history of genocide and a larger seizure of land and resources.
Eppinga's book is quite an amazing collection of photographs with detailed captions as are most of the 'Images of America' series, but there is less introduction here than in others and some of the captions a little repetitive. I wished it had been a little more chronological, instead it jumps around though the content is essentially all the same whether placed in chapters titled 'Coronado's Children' or 'Miners and Madmen'. There is page after page of weathered old men (and one or two women) who walked the Superstition mountains in search of gold.
There were multiple murders in these hills, and the book covers a couple versions of the stories surrounding them and the Lost Dutchman's Mine -- for more, and pictures of the mountains, the museum and additional thoughts take a look here.
There's a chapter on the so-called 'Dons' as well as on building the Apache Trail (!) and Roosevelt Dam, and a final chapter on the Superstition Mountain Historical Society and Museum.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews