[Milsurplus] Fort Huachuca

[Hue Miller]

My father was stationed briefly at Fort Huachuca and the family went down to 
visit him
around '64. We visited the Army Museum there and I was fascinated to see the 
Army's
WW1 crystal radio receivers, BC-14, I think. We also took a walk up Huachuca 
Canyon
and my father told us about the 'Huachuca Gold' story, another search for 
which had
been recent history. Reminded of this by the recent posts on Ft. Huachuca, I 
looked
up the subject, and was very surprised to see that episodic search efforts 
had been
undertaken up til 1975, when the searches were definitively ended by the 
Army.
However, I see by several discussions on 'treasure hunter' websites that the 
seductive
dream lives on. Gold fever seems to bypass the logic circuits the same way 
that
revelations of new prophets with their cults do for some.
Basically the Huachuca story goes back to WW2 when a supposedly illiterate 
GI
discovered a shaft going down to a room holding many stacked gold bars. 
Actually,
by his description of how many gold bars were there, this should have been a 
dead
giveaway that the story was pure fantasy. However, "gold" plus "desert" plus
"treasure" is an extremely powerful lure. I really don't understand what the 
payoff
to this GI was, for maintaining the story to the end of his life. But then, 
some people
get voices telling them what to do. Maybe it's as simple as he was just 
loco.
If you care to read about this particular story, and I don't actually 
recommend it,
but here it is, probably the most complete version, and untainted by 
continuing
modern myth:

http://huachuca.army.mil/files/History_JonesGold.pdf

I  have not been back to that area since then, but my parents told me that 
Sierra
Vista, the associated city, has grown tremendously since then. I have always 
kinda
liked the desert country and its colors - BUT, I found the sunrise there 
really brutal,
the way light and heat just comes on, and around here where I'm at now, you 
can step
on any rocky ledge, or pull sticks from a woodpile, without having to 
exercise extreme
watchfulness, and the quality of the cool night air is just delicious.
-Hue Miller