Written August 18, 2002 by Farrell W. Phillips

I don’t know how the name “Trinidad” came about; more correct would be “Trinidad Bar”, a beach area just off the Columbia River, not far from Quincy, WA. There were many stories written in our local newspaper, (The Wenatchee Daily World), about the “Trinidad Treasure” over the years and the scenario stayed about the same in each article. Every story stated that a “group of miners” were on horseback, with their packhorses, bringing back placer gold out of the Fraser River gold fields in British Columbia. Somewhere between Quincy, Washington and the Columbia River, “Renegade Indians” attacked the miners.

The articles always seemed to be short on details, and I don’t remember any mention of when this incident actually occurred. I would guess long before the turn of the Century, perhaps as early as the 1870’s? It is well documented that there was a small band of renegade Indians that roamed North Central Washington and raised their particular band of hell with the ranchers and miners for several years.

Various articles and history books have been of little help, due to so many errors. A little and “common sense” would easily disprove several things that I have read. I’m sure people have probably taken these skewed stories for the “Gospel Truth.” Some writers take more than their share of “literary license.” One of my dad’s cousins was a well-known writer in Eastern Washington, so I do have an insight on how facts can be “bent” a little and a story “embellished” to make it more interesting.

One of my dad’s good friends in Wenatchee, WA was an anthropologist and a geologist. Adams East, (ALA Readers Digest), was one of “My most unforgettable characters.” He had a private museum in Wenatchee and we (dad, mom and I) were guests more than once. After Adam’s death, the museum was moved to Soap Lake, WA.

My dad was no slouch in the geology department either. Years later I learned that dad and Adam had “rubbed elbows” with then world famous explorer’s Roy Chapman Andrews and Professor Louis Leaky.

I was a lucky teenager because Adam liked me and shared many adventure stories with me, including looking for lost Inca treasures in South America. During his most eventful life, he became blind and then was healed through the Christian Science faith. He lived less than two blocks from the Christian Science Church in Wenatchee, which I attended a couple times.

During his recovery, Adam wrote a book about drawing by pencil and shading pictures by different hardness of lead(s). I have this book (which was given to my parents) as a treasured keepsake. When I was going to Entiat High School, Adam East came to our school and gave a wonderful lecture on the different Indian tribes (civilizations) of the World and their travels. This was on the bigger scale of very large tribes crossing from what is now Russia to the United States via the Aleutian Islands. Apparently they came across the frozen ice and traveling thousand of miles, literally “all over the country”. Also, how different cultures “paralleled” without any apparent connections, thousand of miles apart. Obviously, this was (and is) a thought-provoking subject!

Adam East’s son in law was home from the war (WWII) and surprised to still be alive. He was in a combat unit in the Marines in the South Pacific, so that pretty well says it all. My dad and Adam had talked about exploring this “Trinidad Treasure” area by Quincy more than once and finally settled on a date. On this particular day, we were equipped with shovels, big lunches and more than enough enthusiasm to go around! I remember this day and the trip well. Dad and I had driven from our place three miles north of Entiat to Wenatchee in dad’s Old Faithful Model A Ford.

Adam’s son in law had a 1934 Chrysler “Airflow” sedan. This had been Chrysler’s latest great design, with a very unusual rounded grill and also a transmission with overdrive. This was a comfortable four-door sedan, so plenty of room for the four of us. Everything went great on the original old paved highway, almost to Quincy. We then turned off on a rough dirt road through sagebrush and some sort of orchard.

Next was the strong smell of gasoline after going over deep ruts. Yes, we somehow managed to poke a hole in the gas tank! Dad grabbed a piece of root wood that was along this so-called road, and whipped out the pocketknife he always carried. Within minutes we were on our way again, with the hole temporarily repaired by dad’s custom made wooden plug. A piece of dad’s hanker chief wrapped around the plug further helped seal the leak.

Soon, we arrived in what I can best describe as a small “amphitheater”. There were many very large boulders scattered around this flat circular area with cliffs on at least two sides of this area. There were natural small caves in these cliffs but the biggest surprise was that every large boulder had holes dug by hand all the way around them. My first impression was of this tremendous amount of digging that had been done!

A sheepherder was camped out in the middle of this circular area. He had a homemade camper on the back of an old Ford pickup and his trusty sheepdog nearby. I don’t remember anybody asking where his sheep were? Probably past the cliffs, grazing the banks & slopes towards the nearby Columbia River would be my guess.

I estimate we spent about three hours or four hours looking around and talking to the sheepherder. I don’t remember us doing any digging or taking pictures, nor do I remember the day ending on any note of excitement or discovery. I’m almost sure this was the summer of 1946 and we all agreed that we should (someday) come back and look around some more.

I found out years later, that dad had gone back to this area twice by himself. He took one of the gold pieces (coins) he owned and a welding rod both times. He could never pinpoint anything and I know he was very disappointed in his efforts. Dad used the welding rod in his right hand (upright) and the gold coin in his left. This served as a “dowsing” rod, which he used later to “triangulate” a vein of ore behind Cashmere, Washington. He was confident of his efforts this time, but chose not to pursue this because the sample of ore belonged to another and the vein was probably already filed open.

The same sheepherder was there on one of his trips and told dad that there was no gold buried in the immediate area (but) that the gold would be buried between the cliffs and the river. This makes perfect sense to me because who in their right mind would bury “anything” with the Indians watching from the cliffs!

At least the miners would have the “cover” of sagebrush in the numerous ravines that run towards the river, this would act as some protection to bury their saddlebags or “pokes”, even if the moon was out to light up the landscape.

I believe this “frenzy” of searching during the 1940’s started when a rancher discovered that a “wolverine” had dug up a packsaddle buried in one of those small cliff caves. I doubt there is a wolverine (or a wolf) within a hundred miles of Quincy or Wenatchee either. I’m sure the Daily World reporter “enhanced” the story with “wolverine” instead of the rather drab word “coyote”.

In any event, the sheepherder’s theory always made good sense to me. This squares with what a fellow worker told me at Boeing. David Roundtree had been to this same location several times and then had the area professionally map dowsed. Davis said that professional dowsing indicated a location about ¼ mile south of the above area. This whole area has dozens of small canyons pointing towards the river. Sagebrush and rattlesnakes abound in the whole area, so a real desert environment.

I have no strong feelings if this alleged “treasure” has been found or not? I always wondered if they were talking about actual nuggets in saddlebags or “pokes” (or) “concentrate”, where the gold is mixed with pounds & pounds of black sand? If the latter id the case, then I can sure understand why the miners would want to bury their heavy sacks and not be burdened while trying to escape from the Indians.

However, IF they carried only “pokes” of pure gold nuggets, it would seem very unlikely that they would have to bury these to escape the renegade Indians? If this were the case, we would be talking one helluva lot of gold?

In today’s world of electronics a good metal detector could possibly pay off in locating the “Trinidad Treasure”. Well, there you have it. I’m almost positive I was sixteen years old at the time and the above is how I remember this particular day so many years ago.