Speculating on a Treasure Trove

We penetrated a small cavern. In the middle, there were two stacks of bricks. We took one of the bricks and scratched it with a pocketknife and it cut very easily. It was gold.

--Thomas Berlett, an airman who dug into Victorio Peak in 1958

I will eat all the gold that they find. The treasure myth . . . is a pernicious fiction that refuses to die.

--Thomas Merlan, director of the historic preservation division of New Mexico’s Office of Cultural Affairs

There are several theories about how gold came to rest in Victorio Peak.

The one folks seem to prefer is the legend of Padre La Rue, a renegade priest who worked with Indians in Mexico late in the 18th Century. Padre La Rue took a band of Indians north, mined gold and was eventually tracked down and killed by Spaniards.

Others like to think that Maximilian, emperor of Mexico from 1864 until his death in 1867, had spirited some of the country’s wealth north when his rule was threatened.

Some have even suggested that the German government sent the treasure to Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa to finance a campaign to prevent the United States from entering World War I by drawing it into war with Mexico.

Then, there is the theory about the peak’s namesake, the Apache chief Victorio, who held the area hostage until 1880 with raids on white settlers. Some say he must have used the peak to stash his loot, which would account for the presence of Wells Fargo booty--but historians dismiss the notion.

“I am not a skeptic,” said Thomas Merlan of New Mexico’s Office of Cultural Affairs.

“I just happen to know that the stories are nonsense. There is considerable mineral wealth in New Mexico, but stories that suggest Victorio was interested in gold do not bear historic scrutiny.”

Finally, there are, as Jim Eckles, a spokesman for White Sands Missile Range puts it, the “combo theories.”

Terry Delonas, the grandson of Doc Noss’ wife, Ova, provides an example: “I think the site was used by the Indians possibly for centuries and they (others) added to it.”

“The Spanish lost more gold than it is possible to have found.” Eckles said dryly.