New Mexico is a complex tapestry of natural beauty with mountains the dominant feature in the landscape. Except for the eastern fringe, no part of the state is without them. Some maps name seventy-three ranges, from Animas to Zuni. They include seven peaks rising above 13,000 feet, eighty-five more than two miles high, and more than three hundred notable enough to warrant names. All are part of the Southern Rockies, and all have their own strange tales of legends and myths. No legend, however, is more mysterious than the one associated with Victorio Peak.
Victorio Peak is a nondescript, craggy outcropping of rock barely five hundred feet tall. It is nestled near the center of a dry desert lake known as the Hembrillo Basin in the desolate wastelands of northern Dona Ana County in the southern part of the state. The Basin is a lonesome, empty place with miles and miles of solitude broken neither by fence post nor telephone wires. The nearest settlements are forty miles distant, and getting to the rugged sentinel in the forbidding Basin requires skill and dexterity in traversing the barren landscape.
The Hembrillo Basin itself is the southern gateway to the vast hundred mile stretch of blistering, arid desert known as the Jornada del Muerto. It is Spanish for “Journey of Death,” and it is just that. Back in the days of early Spanish exploration, travelers would sometimes leave the lush Rio Grande Valley about fifteen miles north of Las Cruces at a place where the river cut west. Trying to continue their journey north across the barren wasteland toward Socorro usually turned into a big mistake. This route did shorten their trip by several days, but it also took the travelers into the domain of hostile Apache Indians. Many died in the Indian attacks, and many more in the unforgiving desert. It seems ironic that this bleak, forbidding wasteland would hold one of the most baffling mysteries of all time.
If ever anyone was destined to find a fortune in hidden gold, that person was Milton Ernest “Doc” Noss. He was born in Oklahoma, and he claimed that it was the Cheyenne half of him which led him on the fringe of excitement all his life. He loved the unknown, and took any variety of jobs all over the Southwest. Routine things bored him, and he never stayed too long in any one place. If adventure called, Doc was the first one on the trail.
On one of his frequent trips through southern New Mexico, he met a pretty brown-haired woman named Ova Beckworth. She was loving and generous and absolutely enamored with Doc. In 1933, Doc married Ova, whom he affectionately nicknamed “Babe.” They settled down in Hot Springs, which now goes under the name of Truth or Consequences in honor of a popular television game show of the 1950’s. It was here that Doc opened a foot clinic. If he was any kind of medical doctor, the records have not been found to prove it.
Hot Springs was known as one of the Southwest’s best health resorts. People from all over the country came to ease their aches and pains in the healing, warm water, soak up the warm sunshine, and bask in the warm New Mexico hospitality. It was not long before Babe and Doc made many friends.
In November 1937, Doc, Babe, and four others left on a deer hunt into the Hembrillo Basin. They drove toward Victorio Peak, setting up camp on the desert floor not far from the base of the peak. Early the next morning, the men headed into the wilderness, leaving the women in camp. Doc was a loner, and not wanting to hunt with so many others around, he headed toward Victorio Peak to hunt by himself.
As Doc scouted around the base of the mountain, it began to drizzle. It was only a light rain, but a cold rain, and he decided to seek shelter. Since Victorio Peak is a barren, treeless pinnacle of rock and dirt, he scampered up the peak, searching for a rocky overhang large enough to scoot under. Near the summit, he spied a huge boulder and headed toward it. He saw evidence of early inhabitants, but did not know if they had lived there long, or merely used it as a temporary shelter the way he was doing. In the dim light, while waiting for the rain to subside, he noticed a stone that looked as if it had been worked in some fashion. He reached down, but was unable to budge it. Carefully digging around it, he was finally able to work his hands under it. When he lifted it clear, he found a hole which appeared to lead straight down into the heart of the mountain.
Instantly intrigued, Doc ignored the rain and peered over the side into the gaping blackness. He saw what he took to be an old, man-made shaft with a thick, wooden pole attached at one side. The pole had deep gouges at regular intervals for footholds and appeared rotten, leading Doc to believe the opening was the entrance to an ancient, abandoned mine shaft. He totally forgot all about hunting, as he carefully positioned himself under the boulder out of the rain. He planned adventure of a different sort.
When it stopped raining, Doc returned to camp and told Babe of his discovery, cautioning her not to tell the others. It was his plan to return later and investigate the shaft privately. If it was an abandoned mine, it would not matter, but if he found gold, he did not want to share it with anyone.
Several days later, Doc and Babe Noss returned to Victorio Peak with ropes and flashlights. When Doc inched his way down through the tight, narrow passage into the mountain, he uncovered the most controversial subject in New Mexico history---a topic involving unimaginable wealth, murder and mystery. The participants are as varied as they are unique. They appear to range from Don Juan de Onate’s brutal conquest of New Mexico in the 16th Century to our federal government of today, encompassing 18th Century Mexican friars and a legendary 19th Century Apache war chief along the way. It is one of the most incredible chapters in American history.
According to reports, Doc’s initial journey down the shaft was nothing less than spectacular. After testing the wooden pole attached at one side and deciding it was too risky for his weight, he descended by rope nearly sixty feet through the narrow opening. Near the bottom he encountered a huge boulder hanging from the ceiling, almost blocking his way. Unknown to him at the time, this boulder would later play an important role in his adventure.
At the bottom of the narrow shaft was a chamber about the size of a small room with drawings around the walls. Doc thought these sketches were made by Indians, as they were crude and stick-like. Some were painted, while others were chiseled into the rock face. At the other end of the chamber, the shaft continued sloping downward. Descending another hundred and twenty feet before it leveled off, Doc found that the passageway emptied into a huge, natural cavern large enough “for a freight train to pass through.” He saw several smaller rooms chiseled from the rock along one wall.
As Doc inched his way across the great cavern, he made a terrifying discovery...a human skeleton. The hands were bound behind the back, and the skeleton was kneeling, securely tied to a stake driven into the ground, as if the person had been deliberately left there to die. Before leaving the room, he found more skeletons, most of them bound and secured to stakes like the first. Some skeletons were found stacked in a small enclosure, as if in a burial chamber. All told, he reportedly found twenty-seven human skeletons in the caverns of the mountain.
As Doc explored the side caverns of Victorio Peak, he found amazing riches amounting to extreme wealth by today’s standards. Jewels, coins, saddles, and priceless artifacts were everywhere, including a gold statue of the Virgin Mary. In one chamber, he found an old Wells Fargo box and leather pouches neatly stacked to the ceiling. He even found some old letters, the most recent of which was dated 1880. On the lid of one old chest were words written in old English script. The contents of the caverns appeared to represent several different nationalities, and it baffled him.
These chests and artifacts were only the tip of the iceberg. In a deeper cavern, Doc found what he thought was a stack of worthless pig-iron bars. He estimated there were over sixteen thousand bars weighing over forty pounds apiece “stacked up against the wall like cordwood.” He was barely able to lift one, much less think of carrying it back to the surface. Later, the wealth in the cave was calculated to be worth more than two billion dollars. No matter what the estimate, it was clear that Doc had found a substantial treasure, much of it in gold bullion.
Doc filled his pockets with gold coins, grabbed a couple of jeweled swords, and laboriously returned to Babe waiting anxiously at the surface. After telling her of what he had seen and showing her the loot, she insisted he go back into the mine for one of the pig-iron bars. After much searching, he finally found a small iron bar that he could carry back through the narrow passageway, but it was difficult maneuvering through the tight passage with the heavy bar. When he reached the surface, he told Babe, “This is the last one of them babies I’m gonna bring out.”
By then, it was late afternoon, the sun almost on the horizon. When Babe rolled the bar over, she noticed a yellow gleam where the gravel of the hillside had scratched off centuries of black grime. She showed the gold metal to Doc. He said, “Well Babe, if it’s gold, and all that other is gold like it, we can call John D. Rockefeller a tramp.”
From the time Doc Noss discovered the treasure in Victorio Peak, he and Babe spent every free moment exploring the tunnels that led deep inside the mountain. They began living in a tent at the base of the peak, working the claim each day for hours on end. On each trip, Doc would retrieve two gold bars and artifacts. At one time, he brought out a crown that Babe cleaned in her sink in town. According to Babe’s report, it contained two hundred forty-three diamonds and one pigeon-blood ruby. Yet, Doc trusted no one, not even his wife. He disappeared at night into the desert with his booty, hiding pieces of the treasure in places that he never revealed.
Among the artifacts Doc is reported to have retrieved from the cache were four codices---leather pages with hand-tooled instructions---one dated 1797. According to Doc, the codices were reburied in the desert in a chest with other artifacts. Although the originals have never been recovered, there was a copy of one, a translation of which explains the significance of the number seven, according to Pope Pius III.
“Seven is the holy number,” the passage begins. It then continues for several lines before ending with a cryptic message: “In seven languages, seven signs, and languages in seven foreign nations, look for the Seven Cities of Gold. Seventy miles north of El Paso del Norte in the seventh peak, Soledad, these cities have seven sealed doors, three sealed toward the rising of the Sol sun, three sealed toward the setting of the Sol sun, one deep within Casa del Cueva de Oro, at high noon. Receive health, wealth, and honor.”
Believers say that Doc Noss found the Casa del Cueva de Oro, Spanish for the House of the Golden Cave. “Soledad” was the former name of Victorio Peak, and Doc apparently found the seventh door located “at high noon,” but the promised health, wealth, and honor were denied him. Four years before his discovery, Congress had passed the Gold Act, which outlawed the private ownership of gold. Doc was unable to profit from his treasure on the open market.
When Doc’s story eventually hit the headlines, scholars began speculating on how the enormous treasure could have come to be stashed inside Victorio Peak. It was not hard to come up with theories. New Mexico has undergone a lot of transition from the time of the earliest friars to modern time. One of the theories scholars advanced dates back to Don Juan de Onate, who, in 1598, founded New Mexico as a Spanish colony. He knew the tales of the Seven Cities of Gold, and he surely sought them. But Onate was cruel, brutally subjugating the Indians to do his bidding. He beat and tortured them, forcing them to mine gold and silver. It has been reported that he amassed a treasure of gold, silver and jewels before being ordered to Mexico City in 1607. If he did not take the fortune with him, he must have stored it somewhere…Victorio Peak perhaps?
Another theory is that the treasure belonged to a Catholic missionary named Felipe La Rue, or La Ruz, as church documents are said to give his name. He was a native of France and was among the small group of priests who volunteered for service in Mexico. His party sailed to Florida, crossed the Gulf of Mexico to Vera Cruz, and from there, it went to Mexico City by ox cart. After a short rest, Padre La Rue left for the north, where he took up his work among the Indians and peons at a large hacienda near what is now the city of Chihuahua, reaching there in 1798.
From the people at his new station, he heard stories about a fabulous source of rich minerals in the mountains to the north. If he was interested in these stories, he did not reveal it to others. Instead, he continued with his teachings and ministering to the sick and spiritual needs of his small parish. Among his parishioners was an old man, who had been an explorer and soldier of fortune during his youth. This man had traveled widely over the country to the north, and as Padre La Rue personally cared for this ailing old man, the two became good friends.
One day, Padre La Rue asked about the riches which lay to the north. The old man said that if the good priest wanted gold, there was a rich deposit of it located high in the mountains about two days’ travel north of El Paso del Norte, which is the present-day site of El Paso, Texas. According to the legend, the man said, “After one day’s travel from El Paso del Norte, you will come to three small peaks yet further to the north. Upon first sight of these peaks, turn to the east and cross the desert toward the mountains. In the mountains, you will find a basin where there is a spring at the foot of a solitary peak. On this peak, you will find gold.” A few days later, the old man died.
It was not until the crops failed that Padre La Rue thought of the solitary peak filled with gold. His little parish needed water and a better climate, and he called everyone together, asking if they would follow him north. They all agreed, and the little party set out for their new country. After crossing El Paso del Norte, they followed the course of the Rio Grande to the small village of La Mesilla near Las Cruces. North of there, they sighted the three peaks and turned east across the dreaded Jornada del Muerto, finally arriving in the San Andreas Mountains. After a couple of days of exploration, they located a basin in which there was a spring at the base of a solitary peak, just as the old man had said.
Scholars all believe this basin was the Hembrillo Basin, and the solitary peak was Soledad Peak. After a fierce battle between the Army and Chief Victorio of the Apaches in 1880, the peak assumed a new name of Victorio Peak. It is not to be confused with Victoria Peak in the Black Range Mountains near Kingston, New Mexico.
Padre La Rue established a crude camp and sent the men out to search for the gold the old man had promised was there. On one side of the peak, they located a rich vein, ultimately working the mine for years. They tunneled into the mountain and followed the vein downward. The deeper they went, the richer the ore became. The little priest assigned dozens of monks and Indians to mine the gold, form it into ingots and, except for whatever was needed for supplies, stack it along one wall of a natural cavern inside the mountain.
Word eventually reached church officials in Mexico City that the hacienda had been abandoned, and Padre La Rue’s tiny colony was missing. A search party went to investigate. When they returned and reported that the entire population had left for the mountains to the north, soldiers were dispatched with orders to locate the priest and demand an explanation.
It was when a small group was in La Mesilla purchasing supplies that they learned the Mexican Army was on the horizon. Hurrying to camp, they spread the alarm. It was one thing for Padre La Rue to leave his post without permission of church officials in Mexico City, but it was quite another not to deliver the Royal Fifth (or Quinta) of the gold for shipment to Spain. Padre La Rue was in a lot of trouble.
Padre La Rue immediately set about concealing all traces of the mine. Working day and night, knowing the soldiers were drawing ever closer, he had his little group labor to conceal the entrance. When the soldiers finally arrived and demanded to know where the gold came from which was used to purchase the supplies in La Mesilla, Padre La Rue refused to answer. He died under torture, as did many of his followers, and although the soldiers looked all over for evidence of a mine, they were forced to return to Mexico City with nothing to show for their long journey. The Lost Padre Mine, as it has been called ever since, went into the history pages as a beloved legend.
Many scholars think that Doc Noss stumbled upon the Lost Padre Mine, but there are a few who speculate that the treasure could be the missing wealth of Emperor Maxmilian. As emperor of Mexico in the 1860’s, Maxmilian attempted to get his gold out of Mexico, especially when he learned of an assassination plot. He was, in fact, assassinated in 1867. Legend says he sent a palace full of valuables to the United States, and it has never been found. Although it has been rumored that it went by ship and lies in deep waters off the coast of New Orleans, the victim of a particularly bad Gulf storm, the easiest route for the Maxmilian treasure train would have been through the New Mexico corridor into Texas. Strangely, there is an old rumor that it has been lost along the dunes of shifting lake bed in West Texas, the victim of banditry where all the bandits were killed by pursuing posse members. The truth is that no one knows anything for certain. Could the jewels and coins Doc saw have been part of Maxmilian’s missing fortune?
And how does Chief Victorio enter into the story? Well, the most colorful legend associated with the Victorio Peak treasure does concern the great Warm Springs Apache war chief. Victorio used the entire Hembrillo Basin as his stronghold. He absolutely refused to live on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona where his people died from hunger and insect bites. Victorio’s land had always been in the mountains of New Mexico, and a treaty between the Federal government in Washington and his band had promised they could stay on those lands as long as the “mountains stand and the rivers flowed.” With the discovery of gold in the mountains, such did not happen, and in 1878, the treaty was broken. Victorio went on the war path. Knowing how much the white man valued gold and having little use for it himself, he amassed huge amounts of the yellow mineral any way he could get it. He and his warriors raided throughout the Jornada and the Rio Grande Valley, attacking wagon trains, churches, immigrants, mail coaches, and anything else that promised riches. He raided the stage lines all over southern New Mexico and Texas in an all-out war against the U. S. Army and the Texas Rangers. He also took prisoners back to the Basin and subjected them to elaborate torture as a test of their bravery before killing them. Were the skeletons found inside Victorio Peak victims of Victorio’s raids?
