Miscellaneous anecdotes and info concerning the Peck/Javelina area of the Tumacacori Mountains

Transcription

1 Miscellaneous anecdotes and info concerning the Peck/Javelina area of the Tumacacori Mountains Camp Loco The name "Camp Loco" is associated with the Jesuit Treasure of the Mission of Tumacacori. Here is the story: One of the older stories regarding the area of Tumacacori Mt (Peck/Javelina Canyons) is that there is a hidden treasure there. The clues to find the treasure are: "On an Eastern facing cliff will be what looks like a large butterfly head on the right side. Follow the direction of the butterfly, and you will find a very narrow canyon. At the mouth of this canyon is a rock formation that looks like a tall skinny man. Go into this canyon and you will find a face on a cliff. This face looks right at where the treasure is buried." Around the turn of the century, a black cowboy (nobody remembers his real name) after getting out of the military, moved to that spot to search for the treasure. He dug all over the place. Every day he dug he always saw a Big Horn Sheep watching him from cliffs above. Eventually, he started going a little nuts thinking that the Bighorn was the spirit of a dead Jesuit Priest. He shot and killed the Bighorn and eventually grew extremely remorseful over the killing. He never left that canyon. All his supplies were brought to him every couple of weeks by some cowboys from a nearby ranch. They saw how whacky he was getting and told the local sheriff. They all went back out to the camp and the cowboy attacked them forcing them to shoot and kill him. From then on, the place was called Camp Loco. Southern Arizona Trails, Vol. 3, No. 108, November 1, 1988, pages ALSO Searching for Arizona's Buried Treasures: A Two-year Odyssey author: Ron Quinn Chapter: Rock Corral Adventures, pp

2 Camp Loco Site Draws Treasure Hunters Some five miles west of Calabasas and a few miles north of Peck Canyon is a rugged area called Camp Lobo [Loco?]. Supposedly a vast treasure is hidden somewhere among its towering cliffs. Since the 1800s this region has been dug into, blasted and other areas ripped apart by those insisting a fabulous mine and treasure are hidden among the high rocky cliffs that dominate the upper head of the canyon. The first to seriously search for the treasure was a Laura Pierson Shepley [or Shipley]. She came from the upper Midwest, was intelligent, well-educated also claimed to be a lawyer, and had money. Most of the information regarding this woman and the unusual events that occurred at her camp was furnished by Ron W. Anderson of Tubac. She employed about a dozen Mexican men. After a small rock cabin built beside a large boulder, the men began digging numerous tunnels and shafts at random locations throughout the area. She was hoping one of her diggings might intersect the hidden mine tunnel, which she was convinced was somewhere in the vicinity. The majority of this work was carried on beneath the cliffs west of the cabin. No doubt she was searching for the legendary "Lost Guadalupe Mine" and the huge treasure concealed within. It was supposedly hidden by the padres from Tumacacori Mission during the Indian rebellion of This digging continued for several years until she eventually ran out of funds, but this did not dampen her quest for the treasure she believed was there. Shipley also had a bunch of kids with her at Camp Loco - two boys and two girls. It's said both girls became pregnant and left the campsite. While checking court records at Nogales, Mr. Anderson discovered that in 1936, the Shepley woman had become Laura Pierson Shepley Clark after marrying a man named Bob Clark. It's also not known if the four children were his or hers. It's believed that she chose this site from information received from a Mexican family living in the Yuma-Winterhaven area, as she made frequent trips there.

3 One time Mrs. Shepley Clark left the camp on a trip, leaving her two boys in the care of one old man. The old fellow died a few days later, leaving the boys alone. They remained until the corpse began to smell, then left. They hiked out on foot and arrived where Rancho Santa Cruz now stands. Sheriff J.J. Lowe was notified and arrived at the ranch soon afterward. There he obtained horses to remove the body. Ron Anderson believed that by 1935 the Shepley woman was broke, because court records show that on May 22, 1936, she was the defendant in a lawsuit. She had obtained investment money from several Nogales businessmen. The plaintiff was a Marvin V. Saylor. A trial was set but Mrs. Shepley never appeared. Sheriff Lowe was sent out to bring her in. Her cabin consisted of one rock wall built oval shape, or in a half circle out from the huge boulder. This large rock itself was the back wall of the cabin. She had set up a World War I machine gun on a tripod just outside of the door. The sheriff called for her to come out, but the crusty old gal refused. Sheriff Lowe then climbed atop the cabin roof and jumped down, landing between the cabin door and the menacing machine gun. He called again for her to come out, but she again refused, saying she had no clothes and that he would have to take her in naked. The sheriff shouted back that he would if this were indeed that was her wish. Moments later she emerged clothed, and was taken to Nogales. It's believed she was sent to prison at Florence* and served two years. Upon her release, she again made a beeline back to Camp Loco. For some strange reason she got the idea the treasure was beneath the dirt floor of her cabin. With the help of two men, a pit was dug. To cross from one area to the other, a wide plank was placed across the ever deepening pit. One day a helper of hers arrived at the ranch and informed the owner Mrs. Shepley had broken her right arm after falling from the plank. Soon after this incident she departed from Camp Loco and never returned.

4 * Newspapers of the day indicated she went into a mental hospital In the mid-1890s a Mexican family from the Tumacacori-Tubac area searched for the treasure in the canyon about three-quarters of a mile north of the present Camp Loco site. These seekers sank a deep shaft, but it caved in one day entombing two of the men. The search was abandoned soon afterward and it's not known if the bodies were ever recovered. The remaining party moved away to Yuma. Several times over the years, they returned to search again. There is a strong possibility that these were the same Mexicans visited by Mrs. Shepley over the years. It's believed that several of the descendants have returned over the years to search the site once again. Their last trip occurred seven or eight years ago [ ]. A group of blacks searched for the treasure in a canyon just south of Tinaja Canyon shortly after World War I. This is how Nigger [now Negro or Black] got its name. Mr. Anderson was also informed of another group of blacks, perhaps the same ones, who searched for treasure near the old rock corral. Bill Conley, another treasure hunter, and I made a trip to the Camp Loco site last spring. It was a difficult trip, even using a 4 x 4. Parts of the dirt road were washed away, while other portions had rocks blocking our way. These had to be removed before continuing on. It took us two hours of tough driving to reach the site. Then we had another half-mile or so of hiking before finally arriving at the old camp. Deep tunnels and pits were scattered everywhere, and several were quite deep. While resting near the cliffs, we surveyed the entire area below us. It was astonishing to see the enormous amount of digging and backbreaking work that went into this project. And most, if not all was single-jacking through solid rock. About half of the walls of the old cabin were still standing. A large tree now grows from the center of the cabin floor. What looked like the caved-in remains of the pit dug within the structure still was visible beside the huge boulder that made up the east wall.

5 From the looks of the junk scattered around, many others have ventured here to search over the years. One hollowed out area at the base of the cliffs had old camping equipment lying about - a table, a broken cot, and a rotted sleeping bag and other various items. After taking pictures, we returned to the truck and began the long, tedious drive out. If a lost mine full of gold and silver does exist in this rugged country I'm sure it will only be rediscovered by using modern-day technology. Then again, there is the possibility that nothing lays buried except a few broken skeletons and the dreams of those who dug there Laura Pierson Shepley Clark born: circa 1888 sentencing: June 19, 1938, term: three to four years release: June 10, 1942 from the Arizona State Hospital for the Insane Men who Matched the Mountains: the Forest Service in the Southwest authors: Edwin A. Tucker, George Fitzpatrick pp "Some of them have spent thousands and thousands of dollars there. One old camp is up off the side canyon into Peck Canyon. Mrs. Shipley operated there for several years. She got thousands of dollars put up by two or three professors from the University here and a doctor or two others, and she was excavating there. She even had a machine gun set up at one time to guard this "valuable treasure." Two of the fellows that were her bodyguards are still in Nogales; one is a contractor and the other got to be deputy sheriff in Nogales. She sold a lot of stock in this venture. There was all sorts of digging there. In one place she had an inclined shaft. One of the old ranchers there told me that one of the workers she had one time was a Mexican - he was down in this precarious shaft digging for the treasure that was supposed to be down there and it caved in on him. While no one knew particularly that he was a Mexican, there was no better place to bury him, so he is still down in the shaft. It caved in and that's that. We called that Camp Loco. She hired a pack horse from this rancher, for several seasons. He rented her a kind of an old sway-backed horse that wasn't much good for anything else. She would tell prospective bait that he had got sway-backed from carrying out silver bars. Finally

6 she got hold of some stationery of the Treasurer of the United States and faked some correspondence on that - I don't know just what - 'your shipment of gold bullion had been received and the approximate valuation was so much and the exact valuation would be sent to her shortly.' She passed this around and they picked her up on that charge - doing things she shouldn't have done. They sent her up but she came back after a while and went to operating again. She finally moved over to the Coast and committed suicide. That was the end of that. She was quite a gal."