Originally published in the June 25, 2014 edition of the Cherokeean
Reading about the couple who found the jars of gold coins buried in their back yard brings to mind Alto’s own “gold story”.
In the summer of 1958 word began to be whispered around town about the guy who claimed to have found some gold bars while he was out picking berries. There was nothing printed in the newspaper at that time, but anyone who was living here in ’58 probably remembers hearing the rumor.
By the time the story hit the Herald with a big headline and an oversize font, the whole thing was old news.
From the January 22 1959 Alto Herald:
ALTO GOLD RUSH IS OVER
A 38-year-old former resident of Alto D E Jones, now working as a service station attendant in Corsicana, reluctantly admitted Tuesday that the story about the 86 gold bars was just a tale that he started last summer………..Jones (had) stated that he found the treasure after he noticed what he thought was a fruit jar sticking out of the ground. Upon investigating he discovered a gold bar. Further digging turned up 85 more bars, he said.
Although Jones claimed in this story that the tale just took on a life of its own and he didn’t know how to put a stop to it, a follow-up story more than two years later indicates that it was a deliberately planned hoax.
The March 2 1961 Alto Herald reports that Jones had been charged with two criminal complaints of theft by false pretext. Two men from Dallas claimed they had each paid Jones $2500 in pre-payment for one of his gold bars.
The report continues:
Meanwhile, Jones, his story about the elusive gold bars still changing with the wind, remains secure in the Cherokee County jail in Rusk.
The father of eight children, he brought down a clatter of publicity and the wrath of Secret Service agents in January of 1959 with his story of finding 4300 pounds of gold – buried treasure, of course – while picking berries one afternoon near Alto.
Later when Secret Service Agents called on him in Corsicana where he had moved to “get away” from the publicity, he admitted it was all a hoax.
Reluctant, even from his jail cell to give up his star role in the mystery, Jones had one last comment: “I am the only person who knows whether there is any gold or there isn’t”.
The real mystery to me in this story is why any sucker would lay out $2500 for a gold bar he had never seen.
The original story in January 1959 did reawaken interest in old legends of buried treasure of Mexican gold that had originally belonged to Santa Anna. Historian Bob Bowman interviewed an old-timer from Lufkin whose uncle had told him of going on expeditions in his childhood to search for the alleged treasure. Bowman’s column appeared in the January 29, 1959 Alto Herald.