First of all, he’s not “lost.” We know exactly where he is. Second of all, he wasn’t “Dutch.”

My current work in progress is set in the Superstition Mountains, supposedly the location of the fabled Lost Dutchman’s Mine. The so-called Dutchman was a real person. Jacob Waltz (1810–1891) was a German prospector (Deutsch, not Dutch) who claimed to have found a rich deposit of gold in the mountains outside of Apache Junction, Arizona. Nobody has ever been able to find the mine, though thousands have tried.

In my book, the main characters visit the grave of Jacob Waltz, looking for clues. So I decided to do the same.

The Pioneer Cemetery

Actually, that’s a misnomer. His mine is lost, but his remains are not. He’s buried in the Pioneer Military and Memorial Park, a bare-dirt graveyard right in the heart of downtown Phoenix. His grave site is visible, behind the iron fence that encircles the cemetery, from the corner of 15th Ave. and Harrison St.

I did my reconnoitering the day after I drove the moving van out into the Superstition Wilderness. I was still driving the same van. It was rush hour by the time I returned to Phoenix, but I made it off the freeway and into the sketchy downtown area where the Pioneer Cemetery sits.

It took a while to find the gates. They were locked.

But I’d driven several hundred miles, and I wasn’t going to let a locked gate stand in my way

The Lost Dutchman’s Grave

I won’t specify how I got inside, but suffice it to say that I did. I found the grave, took a few  photos, and paid my respects. The grave itself was pretty anticlimactic, especially after hearing the legends for so long. There were a few homeless people wandering around, and I was antsy to get going, so after ten or fifteen minutes I managed to get myself to the other side of the fence and drive away.

I’m glad I visited. When you write about someone, you often develop a pretty strong sense of identity with them. I got some good intel about the grave (and about the gate that prevents people from visiting it) for my book. Also, it was good to say howdy.