Legends of Texas Page: 38
279 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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Texas Folk-Lore Society
Chuzas, called so from its proximity to Las Chuzas Mountains.
In later times Texas pioneers found that Indian bullets lodged in
the spokes and felloes of their wagons were almost pure silver,
and the Indians are supposed to have got their material for bul-
lets from the Chuzas ore. The Indians would never tell where
they got it. While Dubose and a man named Wallace McNeill
were riding the country in quest of the Rock Pens they found the
shaft of the mine at the foot of one of the Chuzas Mountains.
That shaft is said to be lined with silver bars covered over with
clay, but as the men were looking for the "thirty-one mule loads"
and fully expected to find them, they did not investigate the shaft.
Some ten miles away, in the Guidan Pasture, and about six
miles from the Nueces River, is what is known as the Devil's
Water Hole, and there the smelter is supposed to have been located.
Burnt rocks to this day evidence its existence. In the vicinity
of White Creek, in the foothills below the Devil's Water Hole,
were some other silver mines that used the same smelter.
Somewhere between the old Las Chuzas Mine and the Nueces
River there is said to be a pile of silver bullion, crude, unformed,
in the very hue and shape of the rocks around. How it came
there or why, nobody knows. It just came there, so the Mexicans
still say.
Fifteen or twenty miles beyond the San Caja in a westerly direc-
tion on what is now known as Los Picachos (The Peaks) Ranch,
an early settler named Crier, according to John Murphy, a ranch-
man of the vicinity, actually used to operate a silver mine that
yielded about twenty dollars to the ton of ore.
LOMA DE SIETE PIEDRAS
In the same general direction from the San Caja as Los Picachos
is the Loma de Siete Piedras, or Seven Rocks Hill, on which the
Mills Ranch is located. Near this hill, as I have the tale from Mr.
Whitley, the Mills boys unearthed some human bones while dig-
ging post holes. They themselves had never dug for treasure, for
though they had always heard that there was treasure stored
away somewhere in their country, they had never been able to get
the details that would guide them to it.
Naturally they talked of the rather unusual find, and not long
after the event a gang of eleven or twelve Mexicans rode up to
the Mills Ranch. Now, the San Caja country is in all ways a38
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Legends of Texas (Book)
Collection of popular Texas legends, including tales about buried treasure, the supernatural, pirates, origins of Texas flowers, and other miscellaneous legends. The index begins on page 271.
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Dobie, J. Frank (James Frank), 1888-1964. Legends of Texas, book, 1984; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67651/m1/52/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.