“Anybody’s Gold Mine”, by Maurine Whipple

One in a series of introductions of pieces from A Craving For Beauty: The Collected Writings of Maurine Whipple (BCC Press, 2020).

Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 1, 1949.

One of a series of Whipple magazine articles about interesting places and people on the edges of the Great Basin. In 1914, a man named Freddie Crystal arrived in Johnson Canyon north of Kanab, Utah with a newspaper clipping about Mexican petroglyphs. A legend held that Montezuma had sent much of his gold north to save it from the marauding Spaniards, and Crystal thought the petroglyphs indicated that it had been hidden nearby. Many Kanab citizens spent weeks living in tents in Johnson Canyon digging for the hidden treasure; but after two years, there was still no sign of it.

In spring 1949 Whipple was working as a caretaker on the isolated Von Hake ranch in Johnson Canyon. She interviewed Kanab citizens about the craze, and explored the area herself. She sold the story to The Saturday Evening Post, the leading general-interest magazines of the day, for $750. They sent photographer to take pictures of the dig site.