I am always intrigued by the amount of the lost mines there are out there. It sometimes baffles me how so many people over the years stumbled upon a rich glory hole or seam of gold and then forgot where it was. Or the other cases where it's not until the old prospector is on his death bed does he reveal the spot of that secret source of gold. It doesn't seem to matter that the latter lived in poverty all his life but it always make for a good story.
The lost Croslin mine is an interesting story also. John Croslin was a shepherd that tended sheep as they roamed about the hills and valleys of Utah. Being a devote Mormon he took his profession and believes very seriously. One day he was out tending to his flock of sheep and they all seemed content with grazing in a certain area and John decided to leave his sheep unattended as he wanted to explore a bit of the surrounding country side. He hadn't been away long and when he returned to his flock of sheep he noticed some of them had slipped away and were grazing up on the side of a hill. John managed to round up his flock and then went after the others up on the hill side. While climbing the hill he stumbled in some brush and then noticed and white quartz like rock with a band of gold color running through it.
Now of course John wasn't a prospector or a geologist but he did know what he saw and what that was, was gold. Being an ordinary fellow who was just a sheep herder he didn't know what to do about this find and thought it best to talk to the preacher at the church. After talking to the preacher it was advised that he talk to the leader of the Mormon church, Brigham Young. So he set off to Salt lake City and talked to the leader himself. When the leader, Brigham Young hear the story he told John to leave it be. Don't tell anyone about the gold he said. Tell not a soul otherwise you and them will be cursed. John went away back to his sheep herding and never told told a soul. But some people knew something was up and rumors were that he had found gold. They knew John had seen something so they would ask him questions but John held strong to his word and kept silent.
Years later a distant relative of Johns was in the area and was trading bits of raw gold for goods and services. People started talking again about where this person had gotten the gold and being a relative to John they assumed John had maybe told him of the secret find of gold. Had the releative found that source of gold or had he brought it from somewhere else? No one knew excatly but then one day the relative was found dead in the hills outside of town. Was he murdered? How did he die? No one ever found out but John knew it was the curse that Brigham Young had told him about years earlier. A short time later John himself would end up dead while helping out at a sawmill. There had to be a curse to this gold for sure.
Soon rumors where running like wild fires about the hidden lost gold. A couple of brothers supposedly had a map that John had drawn and the brothers ended up fighting over the map. One brother ended up shooting the other for the map and then skipped town never to be seen again. Then one day Bill Hickman who was an outlaw came to town. He set up to conspiring with John's widow as maybe John had told her where the gold is. Supposedly they went off into the hills looking but no one knows for sure. A short time later Bill Hickman showed up dead in another state and Johns widow was all alone and shunned by the neighbours and the rest of the Mormon church members. To this day the Lost mine of John Croslins's has never been found. Some say the the Lost Croslin Mine was the Lost Rhodes mine but we may never know. Dead men don't talk.
