Oklahoma Treasures and Treasure Tales
“Son, there's more treasure buried right here In Oklahoma than in the rest of the whole Southwest.” Those words from an old-timer launched Steve Wilson on a years-long quest for the stories of Oklahoma’s treasures. This book is the result.
It is a book of stories—some true, some legendary—about fabulous caches of lost treasure: outlaw loot buried in the heat of pursuit, hoards of Spanish gold and silver secreted for a later day, Frenchmen's gold ingots hidden amid massive cryptic symbols, Indian treasure concealed in caves, and lost mines—gold and silver and platinum.
It tells about the earliest treasure seekers of the region and those who are still hunting today. Along the way it describes shootouts and massacres, trails whose routes are preserved in the countless legends of gold hidden alongside them, Mexicans' smelters, and mines hidden and sought over the centuries.
This is a book about quests over trails dim before the turn of the century. It is about early peoples, Mound Builders, Vikings, conquistadors, explorers, outlaws, and gold seekers. The author has spent years tracking down the stories and hours listening to the old-timers' tales of their searches.
Wilson has provided maps, both detailed and modern ones and photographs of early treasure maps and has richly illustrated the book with pictures of the sites that gave rise to the tales.
For armchair travelers, never-say-die treasure hunters, historians, and chroniclers and aficionados of western lore, this is an absorbing and delightful book. And who knows? The reader may find gold!
Child of the Fighting Tenth:
On the Frontier with the Buffalo Soldiers
"No one knew when the bugle sounded reveille what would happen before taps that night." Forrestine "Birdie" Cooper learned at an early age that growing up on the western frontier meant that each new day brought a fresh adventure.
Birdie's father, Charles Cooper, was an officer in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, one of four regiments of black troops with white officers. The Buffalo Soldiers made headlines with their battles against Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Lone Wolf, Billy the Kid, and Pancho Villa. These momentous events were just everyday life, and these men of valor, playmates in the childhood escapades of Birdie Cooper.
Later in life, after she had married and published several novels, Forrestine Cooper Hooker began writing her memoir, which remained unfinished when she died in 1932. Steve Wilson edited the manuscript into publishable form. The compelling yet humorous stories told in Child of the Fighting Tenth capture the drama of the settlement of the American West, the Indian wars on the plains, and the Geronimo campaign in the Southwest and Mexico as seen through the eyes of a young girl. In this memoir, Birdie Cooper draws us into her world, offering a vibrant portrait of behind-the-scenes life on the western frontier.
The Spider Rock Treasure:
A Texas Mystery of Lost Spanish Gold
Hidden in the unforgiving earth of West Texas were clues: archaic clues etched upon buried rocks, stacked as artifacts upon other clues, or carved into rock walls. These centuries-old clues, placed to lead Spaniards back to their cache, eventually formed an intricate web that has lured treasure seekers and captured them in its mystery. But the question still remains: Has the Spider Rock treasure ever been found?
Steve Wilson first began his research on the treasure in 1960. The story he unraveled is an incredible tale riddled with murder, mystery, and adventure. Wilson left no stone unturned in his quest for clues, weaving his story from numerous interviews with eyewitnesses, early newspaper accounts, letters, documents, extended reconnaissance of the actual sites, and finally the cryptic stone maps that had gradually been unearthed by the original seekers.
The story involves several towns and counties in West Texas; including Rotan, Aspermont, Haskell, Fisher County, Stonewall County and one of the area's most prolific landmarks, the Double Mountains.
The Spaniards buried something fantastic in the West Texas hinterlands, where they were mining precious metals. They marked those sites by an ingenious method of carving coded symbols, directions, degrees, and distances into stone. To this day, the stone maps remain undeciphered, the ancient puzzle unsolved, and the treasure unfound—so far as we know.