continued from page 13
and its location was lost.
This happened in 1884, when the
Reagan brothers, Frank, Jim, Lee and
John, hired a young 19-year-old
Seminole Black cowboy (Seminole
Blacks were used to train the Buffalo
Soldiers) named William ‘Bill’ Kelly
from Muzquiz, Mexico. While gathering
saddle horses for a cattle roundup, Bill
found a gold-bearing ledge on the
Reagan Ranch somewhere in the vicinity
of Maravillas Creek in Reagan Canyon.
The ledge was said to be located near the
mouth of Maravillas Creek where it
empties into the Rio Grande.
Kelly’s employers laughed at him
when he told them that he had found
gold. They continued to make fun of
him even after he showed them the gold-
laden quartz he had brought back to
camp. To add to the insult, John Reagan
even threw a chunk of Kelly’s quartz in
the river, telling Kelly it was worthless.
That night, Bill Kelly slipped out of
camp on a borrowed horse and headed
back home to Muzquiz. He left the horse
in Sanderson. After all, he wasn’t a thief;
he just needed transportation to the train
depot in Sanderson, 75 miles northeast
of Reagan canyon.
There in Sanderson, while waiting for
the train, he met a railroad engineer
named Lock Campbell. Kelly and Lock
hit it off, and Kelly gave Lock some of his
ore samples so they could be assayed.
Campbell, true to his word, took the
samples to Austin. The assays on Kelly’s
samples were high, the find was very
rich. But Bill Kelly had disappeared from
Texas, and he could not be found. Efforts
to find him in Mexico proved fruitless, as
well.
The assayer’s report addressed to Bill
Kelly was delivered by mail in care of the
Reagan Ranch. After reading Bill Kelly’s
personal mail, the Reagans realized that
they had made a big mistake in laughing
the 19-year-old kid out of camp.
Lock Campbell, armed with assay
reports, tried to discover Bill Kelly’s
whereabouts for a number of years. He
posted ads in the larger Texas newspa-
pers, with no results. The Reagans
realized they couldn’t find the gold
without Bill Kelly, and they, too,
launched a search to try and locate him,
but again, no Bill Kelly. The Reagans
even formed a partnership with D.C.
Bourland and O.L. Mueller and hired a
man named Finckey to do the actual
14
gold prospecting. Finckey did return
with some pretty rich ore; but, he never
revealed to the Reagans where he had
found it. By continuing to prospect,
Finckey could continue to string the
Reagans along with their payments for
prospecting.
During the time the Reagans were
looking for Kelly’s gold-bearing ledge,
they started a rumor to throw other
prospectors off: Bill Kelly, the Reagans
reported, had actually found the gold ore
across the river in Old Mexico. But a
prospector named John Chambers
exposed the fictional story when he said,
I have found gold on both sides of the
river. The existence of the Shafter Mines
confirms what Chambers said. But the
Reagans, in trying to keep gold-hungry
prospectors from digging up their ranch,
circulated the fictional story far and
wide, in hopes of keeping Kelly’s Strike
for themselves. The Reagans never locat-
ed the gold.
According to C.W. Smith of
Sanderson, Texas, this Strike was so rich
that Prospector Harry Turner, who pur-
portedly found Kelly’s ore-bearing ledge,
claimed that if he revealed his ore sam-
ples’ assay reports, he would have been
accused of assaying $20 gold pieces. But
Prospector Turner was killed in a separate
mining incident on another ranch, and
knowledge of the whereabouts of Kelly’s
ore-bearing ledge was lost with Turner’s
death.
This is where you need to keep your
head, use some common sense. Never
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2019
allow Gold Fever to take over. For
instance, I have read that Kelly’s ore
assayed at $38,000 to the ton, also
$75,000, $63,000, $80,000. All of these
figures are so far off from known mining
facts, they are unreal. Let’s take the low-
est figure of $38,000 to the ton; at $20
an ounce (gold prices then), that puts the
Strike at 1,900 ounces per ton. That
means Kelly’s Strike would be producing
more ounces of gold per ton than the
famous 16-to-1 Mine in California, the
richest mine in North America. Even if
Bill Kelly’s Strike assayed at $3,800 that’s
still 190 ounces of gold per ton...11(+)
pounds of gold per ton at the turn-of-
the-century prices. Not impossible, but
highly unlikely. Beginning prospectors
should beware of being captured by the
legends and myths surrounding mines
and lost treasure. Do diligent research
and stick to the hard facts.
In the early 1990s, I helped rescue a
feller who was left stranded with no food
or life-saving supplies after his crew
abandoned him out in the desert. The
crew’s New Mexico gold-hunting expedi-
tion failed, but the man with terminal
Gold Fever stayed on, and Gold Fever
almost got him. Never take a book on
Treasure Hunting at face value. They are
written to create sensation. If you have
ended up with a map leading you to a
lost mine or buried treasure, throw it
away... it’s fake. Keep your head about
you and go prepared.
The Bill Kelly Strike has never been
located again; it is still out there waiting
to be rediscovered. The gold is still there
close to the mouth of Maravillas Creek
in Reagan Canyon. But there are two ini-
tial problems: The Reagan Ranch, specif-
ically Reagan Canyon, now lies within
the boundaries of the Big Bend National
Park and Park Rangers take a dim view of
Treasure Hunters and Prospectors. All of
the ranch lands close to Reagan Canyon
are on private property. Private property
rights in Texas are considered sacred.
Violating property rights could provoke
bodily injury or, in extreme situations,
death. So, a cold six-pack and a little old-
fashioned front porch time with a Texas
rancher could prove beneficial to your
quest. Make sure you always secure writ-
ten permission from land owners before
embarking on any prospecting excur-
sions in Texas. Take that signed permis-
sion with you.
Even today, a solitary man or woman
with a little grit, a backpack, some time,
and a few simple tools and supplies still
stands a chance of becoming very, very
wealthy, if they happen onto Bill Kelly’s
gold-laden ledge located somewhere
around the Maravillas Creek area in
Reagan Canyon. Gold that was only
worth $20 an ounce in 1884, is now
worth $1,289.90 an ounce today, in
January, 2019.