Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  How It Got There: During the Civil War, France had ideas about regaining some of its lost New World empire, and as a first step, Napoleon III placed Maximilian, the Austrian archduke, on the Mexican throne. Maximilian had delusions of grandeur, though, and arriving with his entire Austrian fortune, used his position to amass even more.

  The foreign ruler was despised by the Mexican peasants, and plots for his overthrow began almost before he arrived. The emperor realized that if he wanted to live, he’d need to find a more agreeable climate. First, though, he wanted to get his wealth out of the country.

  It’s not easy to be inconspicuous when you’re moving gold and jewelry through rural Mexico, but Maximilian had a plan. He had four trusted aides pack all his valuables in 45 flour barrels and sprinkle a layer of flour on top. His aides and faithful peons set out in a caravan for the north and crossed into Texas near El Paso. The caravan now had to contend with the bandits that roamed the lawless Texas border country. A band of former Confederate soldiers warned the travelers just how dangerous the area was, so Maximilian’s men hired the soldiers on the spot as guides and guards.

  In a typical year, 11,000 Americans seek medical aid after “trying out new sexual positions.”

  A few nights later, curiosity got the better of one of the guards. He had to know why a caravan of flour needed so much protection. So while the rest of the camp slept, he discovered the secret. Maximilian’s men didn’t live to see daylight.

  The soldiers knew they’d never get all that gold past the other bandits in the area, so they stuffed their saddlebags with as much as they could carry and buried the rest. There are various versions of just how many soldiers there were and just how they died. It is agreed, however, that none lived to recover their hidden treasure.

  Previous Searches: As one of the men died with a doctor in attendance, he gasped out the story of the buried millions at Castle Gap. The doctor went to search for it many years later but found nothing. None of the landmarks on the map drawn by the dying outlaw matched anything that he could find. Yet it’s certain that Maximilian’s men were escorting a fabulous treasure and that the treasure has never been seen again.

  How to Get There: By all accounts, the treasure is still hidden somewhere around Castle Gap, high in the King Mountains north of El Paso. Ask in El Paso how to find the gap. Be prepared for hot, dry, dusty mountain country.

  VERMONT’S CIVIL WAR BANK ROBBERY

  A band of Confederate raiders robbed three banks in St. Albans, Vermont, and buried $114,522 in gold and currency somewhere near the Canadian border.

  How It Got There: St. Albans was a sleepy village on October 18, 1864; the townsfolk didn’t pay much attention to all the strangers that had appeared during the previous few days. There was a war on and strangers were always coming and going. But that war was much closer than anyone suspected.

  As the afternoon wore on, the strangers began moseying over to the village green. Suddenly they formed into three separate groups and converged on the three banks fronting the square. While some of them held the townspeople at gunpoint, the rest cleaned out the banks. In minutes the task was complete, and they galloped out of town.

  Traditionally, Tibetans disposed of their dead by hacking them up and feeding them to birds.

  Fourteen of the twenty-two were soon arrested in Canada, and St. Albans was amazed to learn that they were Confederate soldiers who had planned to use the loot to stage similar raids on other New England towns. The arrested men had some of the money with them, but $114,522 was missing. The banks offered $10,000 to anyone who could locate the missing gold. There were no takers.

  Previous Searches: After the war, one of the soldiers came back to St. Albans. He didn’t say much, but a local farmer secretly followed him as he wandered along the Vermont side of the Canadian border. He was obviously searching for something but seemed confused. At length he left, empty-handed, and was never seen again.

  How to Get There: St. Albans is about 20 miles north of Burlington, Vermont, near Lake Champlain. The soldier’s search seems to place the treasure somewhere along the Vermont side of the border near there.

  MUD LAKE GOLD

  Gold bullion and money totaling $180,000—stolen from a Wells Fargo stagecoach—was thrown into Mud Lake in Idaho by escaping bandits.

  How It Got There: In 1865 a stagecoach bound for Salt Lake City was attacked by the notorious Updike and Guiness gang. Four passengers were killed and the driver knocked unconscious. At least $100,000 in valuables was taken from the wealthy passengers, along with $80,000 in gold bullion from the stage’s strongbox.

  The driver and the surviving passengers made it to McCammon, Idaho, where they told their story. A posse quickly formed to track the gang. The outlaws got trapped in the murky waters of Mud Lake and knew that they’d never escape with the heavy gold weighing them down. While the posse was still in the rocks above, they saw the robbers throw heavy sacks into the water.

  The gang escaped but never returned to the area for the treasure. The posse couldn’t pinpoint the exact spot where they had seen the gold dumped, and there’s no record that it was ever found.

  Previous Searches: A treasure hunter named B. C. Nettleson and his partner, Orba Duncan, searched the lake for 20 years without finding a clue. Then in 1901 Duncan came up with three bars of solid gold, which he sold in a nearby town for $25,000. He kept searching but found nothing more. That’s all that has ever been found, but local residents are convinced that the gold is still on the muddy lake bottom.

  Sesame Street update: Oscar the Grouch has a pet—a worm named Slimey.

  How to Get There: Mud Lake is in east-central Idaho, in Jefferson County, about 30 miles northwest of Idaho Falls, and about 60 miles north of Pocatello.

  RENO GANG TRAIN ROBBERY

  Gold coins, bars, and currency worth more than $80,000 were stolen from a train in Marshfield, Indiana. The robbers apparently stashed it nearby and were hanged before they could retrieve it.

  How It Got There: In 1868 a passenger train of the Jefferson, Madison, and Indianapolis Railroad stopped for wood and water at a station in Marshfield. As the crew left the train, some men hidden behind a woodpile leaped out, knocked the fireman and engineer unconscious, uncoupled the passenger cars, and took off with the engine and the baggage car. The empty safes from the baggage car were found in a wooded area 20 miles from Marshfield, but there was no sign of the contents.

  A short time later, four members of the same gang were arrested for killing three of their companions. The four prisoners were taken to nearby New Albany for safekeeping, but that night 50 vigilantes rode into town with red bandannas on their faces and demanded to know where the loot was hidden.

  With the sheriff and prison guards tied up, they dragged the gang members one by one out of their cells. They were given a choice—their money or their lives. One by one they refused to tell where the gold was buried, and one by one they were hanged. The last man spit defiantly and said, “You’d hang me anyway, so why should I tell?” He was probably right.

  How to Get There: Marshfield, Indiana, is in Warren County, near the Illinois border in the west-central part of the state. The gold is probably somewhere in the vicinity, hidden under Indiana farmland.

  JESSE JAMES’S MEXICAN GOLD

  Jesse James’s gang stole gold bars worth more than $1 million and buried them in the Wichita Mountains near Lawton, Oklahoma.

  CBN: For years, the globe on the NBC Nightly News spun in the wrong direction.

  How It Got There: During the 1870s, the gang staged a series of raids along the Texas–Mexican border, and in one of them took a caravan of gold bullion belonging to a Mexican general. The gang headed north into Indian territory with its loot and buried it in the Wichita Mountains.

  Previous Searches: Years later, with brother Jesse dead, Frank James bought a farm and settled down near Lawton, Oklahoma. He made no secret of the fact that he was using the farm as a base from which to search for that gold.
He’d helped bury it, but the intervening years of dodging the law had dimmed his memory. He knew that they’d left a marker of pick heads and a code scratched on a bucket, but he couldn’t find these clues. He was convinced that this fortune was within a few miles of his farm but after years of searching, found nothing.

  In the 1950s, a man named Hunter Pennick dug up a brass bucket, two old pick heads, and an iron wedge. On the bucket was scratched an undecipherable code. Pennick dug numerous holes in all directions around his find, but discovered nothing more.

  How to Get There: Lawton is located in southwestern Oklahoma, about 80 miles from Oklahoma City. Ask local residents for the site of Frank James’s old farm.

  GOLDEN WASHTUB

  An old prospector apparently hid a washtub half full of gold dust and nuggets worth over $1 million near Hill City, in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

  How It Got There: In 1879 two prospectors named Shafer and Humphry picked out a claim in the Black Hills near Tigreville and began panning. They struck it rich and worked the 20-acre claim for years. One hole alone is said to have yielded 17 pounds of gold, while another hole—16 feet square in size—yielded over a pound a day. They put all their dust and nuggets in a big washtub, using a few pinches now and then to buy provisions. They agreed to split everything 50-50.

  By the time the claim played out, their washtub was full and Humphry decided to return to his wife and kids in Ohio. He took his half and left, but Shafer stayed on. A confirmed prospector, he staked out another claim farther down Newton Fork and worked it until the day he died.

  Don’t bet on it: 76% of Americans say they have never participated in illegal gambling.

  Shafer had no known relatives, nor any friends. He spent his time alone working his claim, didn’t drink or use tobacco, and never gambled. Townspeople said that his fortune must have been hidden somewhere near his claim. All traces of his old cabin are gone, but old-timers remember seeing its rotting remains along the road to Deerfield. Not a single nugget has ever turned up.

  How to Get There: Hill City is in southwestern South Dakota, about 30 miles southwest of Rapid City, not far from Mount Rushmore. Ask old-timers or the local librarian where Shafer’s cabin was, along Newton Fork.

  TREASURE MOUNTAIN, COLORADO

  Gold worth anywhere from $5 million to $40 million was buried by French miners in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado in the late 18th century.

  How It Got There: Tales of incredibly rich gold mines being worked by the Spanish began to drift out of the West with the French fur traders in the late 18th century. Since the French felt that they had a claim on the area, they sent a party from New Orleans to find out what all the excitement was about.

  The French traders finally reached the San Juan Mountains and were amazed to find them even richer than they were rumored to be. They set up camp and began working their first rich strike—without bothering to look up the Spanish.

  The size of the French party and the amount of gold its members mined is in dispute, but everyone seems to agree that they buried the gold to keep it from falling into Spanish or Indian hands. The fields were so rich that the French stayed on through the first winter, even though it got so cold and the snow got so deep that mining was impossible. They wintered in what is now Taos, New Mexico, and returned to their mines in the spring. They continued this pattern for several years.

  But trouble came in the form of American Indian raids. Perhaps the Arapaho began their raids because the French were friendly with the Utes, traditional enemies of the Arapaho. Perhaps the Spanish put them up to it because of complaints from the señoritas in Taos about the Frenchmen’s “love ’em and leave ’em” ways. Perhaps it was because the Spaniards had learned just how rich the French mines were and had decided that they didn’t want anyone else to have all that gold. Whatever the reason, the French forces were soon decimated.

  What do we call these facts at the bottom of the page? Running feet.

  Lone Survivor: Some accounts claim that the surviving French men had three hiding places for their gold. Others say that they dug a single shaft into the bedrock of Treasure Mountain, a tunnel full of death traps. They also dug a well nearby, according to this tale, and put a map showing the gold’s location in a bottle, and dropped it to the bottom of the well. Trees in the area were marked with arrows pointing to the shaft concealing the gold.

  The small French party suffered more attacks during their flight, and only one man—Remy Ledoux, the party’s leader—survived. When he straggled into a French trading post on the Missouri River and spilled out his tale of fantastic riches in the mountains to the west, his countrymen scoffed. It was too much to believe. The treasure was soon forgotten.

  Previous Searches: In 1842 Ledoux’s grandson, who had a map that he said came from his grandfather, organized an expedition of 40 men to search for the buried gold. The map, unfortunately, wasn’t drawn to scale, and all the mountains in the San Juan range looked alike to the searchers. Worse, Grandpère Ledoux included false landmarks to throw off interlopers. The search party did find a fleur-de-lis scratched on a rock with an arrow underneath it and searched for days nearby with no luck.

  Young Ledoux returned the following spring to continue his quest but drowned in the process. His body was recovered by a William Yule, who, many years later—while drinking—admitted he had Ledoux’s map.

  Another man, Asa Poor, obtained the map and eventually claimed that he had deciphered an inscription in one corner, which supposedly said: “Stand on grave at foot of mountain at six on a September morning, face east, where the shadow of your head falls you’ll find the gold.”

  Although these directions seem a little strange—your shadow falls the same way whether you face east, west, or stand on your head—Poor said that he found a grave that fit the map’s description and nearby found a sealed shaft that seemed to be a worked-out gold mine. Snowslides and avalanches had greatly changed the mountainside over the years, and no traces of the hidden gold could be found.

  Doctors in ancient India closed wounds with the pincers of giant ants. (They bit them shut.)

  How to Get There: Treasure Mountain is located in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, in Rio Grande County, between Summitville and Wolf Creek Pass. It’s about 100 miles east and a little north of Durango, the nearest sizable town, off Highway 160.

  CAPTAIN T. M.’S OKLAHOMA TREASURE

  A copper box full of at least $80,000 in gold coins is buried in the Kiamichi Mountains near the present community of Cloudy, Oklahoma.

  How It Got There: Captain T. M. (name unknown) and his Indian wife lived in the Seven Devils Mountains (now the Kiamichis) around the turn of the 20th century. Over the years, the captain had hoarded $80,000 worth of gold coins and in his old age he decided to put them in a safe place.

  He put his money in a large copper box and buried it somewhere near his cabin. A few years later, he died. He hadn’t told his wife exactly where the box was hidden, but she had watched him whenever he went to fetch money from it. She said that he sometimes would head north and return from the east, and sometimes he’d head east and return from the north.

  Unfortunately, in her old age the captain’s wife couldn’t remember exactly where their cabin had been. Or perhaps she was reluctant to discuss the gold with other people. At any rate, she said that the cabin had stood on a low hill a half mile west of a certain rocky ledge. Local residents say that there used to be a cave near this cliff, but it has never been found.

  How to Get There: Cloudy, Oklahoma, is near the Texas-Arkansas-Oklahoma border, in Pushmataha County. Ask local residents where Captain T. M.’s old settler’s cabin used to stand, or try the library’s newspaper clipping file.

  “As long as you’re thinking anyway, think big.” —Donald Trump

  Nose-art: Mozart wrote a piano piece that required the player to use both hands and his nose.

  The

  Back Side

  You’re n
ot done yet:

  Here are the answers

  to the quizzes found on pages 168, 250, and 416…

  …And info about how to be a part of the Bathroom Readers’ Institute

  BRI BRAINTEASERS

  (Answers from page 168)

  1. The third. Lions that haven’t eaten in three years would already be dead.

  2. Sure you can: yesterday, today, and tomorrow!

  3. It’s a wolf pack.

  4. It’s a game of Monopoly.

  5. Freeze them first. Take the ice blocks out of the jugs and put them in the barrel. You will be able to tell which (frozen) water came from which jug.

  6. The letter e, the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the entire paragraph.

  7. They’re the remains of a melted snowman.

  8. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry.

  9. Charcoal.

  10. He is born in room number 1972 of a hospital and dies in room number 1952.

  THE GRANNY QUIZ

  (Answers from page 416)

  1. b) Mandell was involved in a car accident in which she rear-ended another car. Arresting officer Tyrone Davis claimed she refused to sign the ticket he gave her and then “punched him in the arm and chest.” She said she was “just reaching for her dead husband’s pen,” which she claimed the officer had stolen. She was handcuffed and, after refusing to walk, was carried to the police car. Mandell, who is five feet tall and weighs 90 pounds, later said, “It was very stressful, but the ladies in the cell with me were nice.”