October 8, 2007 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
Two men had a
dream of opening a small store and trailer park on the old Quarter
Circle U Ranch road in the early 1980s. Ernie Provence and Tracy Hawkins
wanted to fulfill a dream of living near Superstition Mountain and at
the same time make a decent living.
Both men had searched the rugged
Superstition Mountains for the Dutchman’s Lost Mine but the only thing
they came away from their search with was knowledge of the area.
Their dream included building a business
on their knowledge of the Superstition Mountains; hence the idea of the
Lost Dutchman Mine Store and Trailer Park.
The spot they chose at Peralta Trail was
really off the well-beaten path. The only available private land they
could lease belonged to a Phoenix baker named Hill. Tracy and Ernie both
invested their meager assets in the project.
Eventually, by 1984, they had a building
up that could be used as a store. They sold a variety of things in the
store including cold drinks. A store in the middle of nowhere was a
challenge especially without electricity or water. They hauled all their
water and generated their own electricity with an old one-cylinder
diesel generator.
I will never forget the time Tracy took
me on a tour of their power house. We opened the door, knocked down the
spider webs, and watched a large rattlesnake slither away under the edge
of the wall. It was certainly an interesting power house. The old
one-cylinder diesel generator ran and ran for several years providing
them with ample electricity to run a walk-in cooler, refrigerators,
lights and cooling.
The Lost Dutchman Mine Store was
the hub of action, you might say, in an area where there was no action.
The proprietors of the store were always looking forward to a visit by
customers. Ernie and Tracy offered a variety of interesting things for
sale at their store. There were the usual Lost Dutchman Mine maps,
treasure maps, a selection of antiques, different odds and ends, cold
drinks and groceries on a very limited basis.
Ernie was proud of his free give-away
match books. The match books were black with “Lost Dutchman Mine”
printed in gold on their covers. These match covers were in demand by
many collectors. The owners, operators and neighbors at the Quarter
Circle U Ranch were the most common visitors to the store. Few people
drove in from Peralta Road in the beginning. I visited the store for the
first time shortly after Tracy and Ernie announced they were going
build it. I must admit they really worked hard at building their dream
in the beginning. It took them almost a year and a half to get the first
building up, the generator in place and a water tower built so they
could have water pressure.
Once the most needed amenities were in
place Tracy and Ernie moved their families out to the site. They lived
in mobile homes under quite primitive conditions.
By 1985 the store was becoming a novelty
and several people did drive off the well-beaten path to Peralta
Trailhead and visited the store near the Quarter Circle U Ranch. Ernie
acquired a beer license from the State of Arizona and this helped
business considerably.
The major problem with the idea of
building a store and trailer park was finding water. They drilled a well
near the store to over two hundred feet, but found no water. They then
tried drilling a well near a small hill east of the store, but found no
water at that site. These two projects devastated their investor’s
money. Once it was decided there would be no wells in the area and it
cost far too much money to run power into the area, the store began to
decline. Ernie and Tracey couldn’t find any more investors after that.
The word had gotten out.
Ernie and Tracy had a wonderful idea and
a lot of people believed in their project. Believe it or not the little
store became quite a popular spot with a lot of people before its total
decline.
After 1985 you could always find a crowd
at the little store on weekends and hear a lot of stories about the
Lost Dutchman Mine. A lot of the old-time Dutch hunters visited or hung
out at the store and told their stories. Characters such as Chuck
Crawford, Bob Ward, Lloyd Sutton, Dutch Holland and many others stopped
in on occasion and told their stories.
Ironically, as the store grew more
popular it began to suffer a tremendous financial loss. Operational cost
of the store far exceeded the revenue the store generated. Ernie and
Tracey both put their own money into the store to keep it going until
the end of 1987. The final straw that destroyed the project was the lack
of water. Every attempt to drill a well and find water failed. These
drilling endeavors required all the capital Ernie and Tracey could round
up. The survival of the store was dependent on the development of a
small trailer park. It wasn’t meant to be. Soon the store was abandoned
and everyone moved on
I have visited the little store several
times over the years and watched it slowly deteriorate back into the
desert. Like so many dreams on the desert the little store of Ernie’s
and Tracey’s failed to generate a profit that would have insured its
survival.
Recently my wife and I visited the
little store to take some photos. Dreams still emerge on the landscape. A
sudden rainstorm produced a beautiful rainbow that ended near the old
Lost Dutchman Mine Store. The store had finally become a pot of gold at
the end of a rainbow. Ironically this pot of gold would not save the old
store from its state of deterioration.
As we drove away my wife and I thought about the many tales that still linger around that old Lost Dutchman Mine Store.