The Josephine de Martinez of the Henry Mountains

 

Several years ago my friends and I were down in the area of Mount Trumbull on an expedition searching for an enormous cave of the indigenous said according to the old document, to contain “amounts unknown to any man.” 

One night while camped out near the summit and sitting around the fire, one of my friends relayed an experience he had with two of his Ute Indian friends concerning an underground city located somewhere in the Mysterious Henry Mountains of which you can read about here…

Underground City of the Snake Kingdom in the Henry Mountains?

Those of you who have visited the many canyons and slopes of the Henrys, can attest to the mysterious sometimes almost eerie atmosphere present in the Henry mountains, a feeling as if you are constantly being watched, not in a sense of danger, but as if you are being observed. One cannot come to terms as to what it is that is so different about this place.

It wasn’t long after that night on mount Trumbull that we found ourselves in the Henrys investigating the instructions given to us by our friend, in search of the incredible things he told us.

It has long been said that in the Henrys is a most famous mine, and long ago described as a mine that is so grand it could make the Catholic independently rich, a mine in which the Spanish found long ago, but who had mined it before them?

A fascinating story yes, hard to believe? Somewhat… but where did the story of this mine the Spanish called the Josephine de Martinez come from?

In 1896 an article appeared in one of the many local newspapers…

 

 

This is the first mention of the old mine that I have found to date… there are other stories as well however my reasons for seeking out this information is…

After one of the many trips into the Henrys seeking other things, I was applying certain little tricks I have learned over the years in finding ancient mine dumps on Google Earth and I have found many. Some have been verified but many still beg for someone to go to the sites and verify, anyway… I was searching an area where it was reported that two gold bars had been found and confirmed I might add…. There is an old trail even to this day that makes its way up a certain canyon and the slopes which seemed obvious the area it was heading, the two bars were found in separate places, one at the bottom of the canyon and one at the top in a flat highly suspect of being the Old Mining Camp of the Spaniards.

this area, I spotted something I have become very familiar with… TWO seeming large and old mine dumps. To be sure the anomalies were as G Earth showed and not a fluke, one can find the USGS topo map for the area and see…. Based on the elevation intervals, depending on how large the dump is depends on how well it shows on the map. As I suspected, there they were…

 

 

After two expeditions sent to investigate closer, we are certain they are indeed mine dumps, however my meticulous nature won’t let me 100% believe this until I have been there myself. Those of you familiar with topo maps can see by the elevation lines in the area above the two dumps show clearly that these are NOT natural slides. An even closer look reveals another even more exciting possibility. 

Years later another article appeared in the news of the day…

 

The location in which one of the two gold bars were found at the top of a canyon, there is a rather large flat, an ideal camp area and with a spring, The suspect camp site is located just a few hundred yards below the suspect dumps. This is also suspect of the location in which the 50 Spaniards were killed.

Having located several mine dumps over the years and a fair portion of them just using G Earth, I have become familiar with even more ancient mining techniques of the Romans and what to look for, and while studying the layout and contour lines of the topo map, I see what could no doubt be… that the two mine dumps sit on top of a much more ancient mining operation of terrace or strip mining, a common mining method used by the Romans and even those before them. Prior to the two mounds being created, you will notice a large platform made from terrace mining, to my knowledge Spaniards did not terrace mine. It is suspect that the Spanish knew of their previous visitors in fact were often operating from information passed down from the times of Roman occupation.

 

According to the old maps showing the 7 cities of Cibola, one of those cities is located on the maps at the very same location as the Henry Mountains, just how old is this mine and could there be a connection between the underground city my friend spoke of and the city shown on the old maps?