Lost Gold

Hundreds of years before Vallecito Reservoir was created in the 30's, the area was a utopia - plentiful with fish, deer, elk, bear, and mountain lions.  This hunting paradise was a choice spot  for the Ute Indians.  Vallecito Creek flowed down the canyon and meandered down the lush valley until it met the Pine River.  Along the grassy banks, the Indians built sweat houses.   Inside they'd splash cold water on hot stones and then dash again into the snow-fed river.  Tumbled down remnants of these sweat houses could still be found until the dam was built in the '30s.  Even though  the land no longer belonged to the Utes by the 1880's, the Indians continued to live off the land, to harvest their medicinal herbs and to pasture their horses in the area.

An Indian by the name of Old Weaselskin was well known in the area, born here in 1850, he later lived on the Animas River 10 miles South of Durango until he died in 1918.

A favorite place of the Indians for respite and food was the Old Waidner Ranch along the Pine River. The Utes often brought gold nuggets from the mountains to pay for the food and other accommodations extended to them. Waider would tell them that the worth of the gold far exceeded the value of the food but Weaselskin, speaking for the Indians didn't care: "Indian no eat gold, He like 'em white man grub. White man like 'em gold.  Indian like 'em trade." And when Waldner said they're bound to run out of gold, the Indians replied: "Indian know where heap much gold. White man house no can hold so much."

Years earlier in 1868, a party of seven men traversed the San Juan country on their way to California via the Old Spanish Trail.  In those days, trails were recognizable by following the scorched or blazed spots on trees, thus the term "blazing a trail."  This party of seven was traversing the Continental Divide which was above timberline and consequently, there were no Spanish blazes on the trees to guide them.   They missed the trail and inadvertently came out on the upper Vallecito with the Needle Mountains to the West, blocking their route.  The party split up into twos and spent the next day trying to search how best to continue their progress.  Two men in the party of seven, Phil Prouty and Jean LeDroit, were lifelong friends.  During their day's search, they stumbled onto the Indian's bonanza of gold in the side of a mountain.  They gathered what gold they could in their tobacco pouches and kept it a secret from the rest of the party, with a return trip in the future in mind.  In camp that night, Prouty cut his initials into a spruce tree, "P.P. 1868."  The next day the party of seven continued West, crossing over the Florida River, down to what we now know as Smelter Mountain to where Durango now is and onto the Old Escalante Trail West.  Much later, Prouty and LeDroit broke off towards Nevada to cash in their gold and do some mining.  Before they could return to their find up the Vallecito, LeDroit was killed in a mining accident.  Prouty delayed his return trip for years believing he was the only man living who knew about the gold.

In the late 1880's, Weaselskin and other Utes were still using the gold for trade in Durango: A dutchman by the name of Gus Brandt ran a butcher shop in Durango at that time.  One morning he had a kettle of weiners on the stove, and invited the Utes who had never seen weiners before, to help themselves to the delicacies.  After they had their fill, Brandt sent them on their way with a few extras, hoping for future business.  A few days later Weaselskin went back up the Vallecito to check up on his horse pastured up there.  On his way back, he stopped in Brandt's shop and handed the butcher a handful of nuggets in payment for the weiners.  Asked where he got the gold, Weaselskin replied: "Up in the mountains where my horses are."

Anable to coerce Weaselskin into divulging the exact source of the gold, Brandt decided to make it into a piece of memorabilia and took it to Zeller, a jeweler in Durango who strung the nuggets together to make a watch chain. It became the most original and famous watch chain in all of San Juan country.  Brandt was but one of many white men who tried every trick to find the source of the gold. The Indians became disgusted with the white man's conniving obsession and believed that no matter how generously they traded, the gold made devils out of the palefaces.

The Indians came to believe that anyone who showed a white man gold would certainly meet with a terrible and untimely death. So a group of Old Utes slipped back into the Vallecito and covered that hole over with logs, rocks and earth. They never brought any more gold to anyone.

Prouty finally returned for the gold in 1893 unaware that he was too late.   He went to the old Durango Corral and Feed Barn (where South City Market now is) and got to talking with a young fellow by the name of Al Steveson, who later became the manager.  Steveson knew the area very well so Prouty hired him to escort him up Vallecito Creek at twice his normal wages. They found the tree carved with "P.P. 1868" (which is now under water), but four days of fruitless searching didn't find the "hole in the Mountainside" he had so vividly remembered.