A Look at Trinidad's Mysterious Rock Ovens

First published on July 28, 2019, in the Columbia Basin Herald - Moses Lake, WA

An intact rock oven built by Italian railroad workers stands north of Trinidad.

Trinidad - Buried in the sagebrush in a small ravine a few miles from Trinidad stands a stone beehive-looking structure. In the same ravine, a similar structure can be seen. This one looks like it has had it’s roof collapse. These unusual structures are believed to be rock ovens built by Italian railroad workers in 1892.

As rail spread across the country, the Great Northern Railroad built a line from Chicago to Seattle. Work on tracks in Grant County happened in the early 1890s, with the line reaching Wenatchee in 1892.

Much debate has taken place over who built these rock ovens, that can be found along various railroad lines around the US. In some places where rock ovens are found, urban legend attributes them to the Chinese. Other possible people to have built them include Greeks, Scandinavians and

“Although many ethnic groups made and used rock ovens, those that are found on early 20th century railroad-related sites are more likely to have been built by Italians simply because that ethnic group constituted the majority of railroad laborers in the United States at that time,” wrote Priscilla Wegars in the article “Who’s Been Workin’ on the Railroad?: An Examination of the Construction, Distribution and Ethnic Origins of Domed Rock Ovens on Railroad-Related Sites,” published in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1991. “Italians were first employed on the railroads in the 1870s; within 10 years, and certainly by the 1890s, they monopolized the laboring jobs on most lines in the United States and Canada, particularly in the northeast. This may have been because they were willing to accept lower wages; the Italians in particular were known to work for up to one-third less than the Irish.”

The Italians were known to have a love for bread. In the various places where they camped, the Italians built rock ovens so they could satisfy their need for bread.

Peter Janni was 17-years-old Italian boy who worked at Trinidad when the railroad was being built. His story was related in the Seattle Times on October 22, 1967, in the article “Rock Ovens That Fed Railway Builders,” written by Leonard Ekman.

“In 1891, when track workers labored on the rock-bound grade near Trinidad, no power equipment was used for drilling or for moving rock,” Eknam wrote. “Hand-held drills, struck by burly, maul-swinging laborers, made the holes for blasting powder. After each round of blasting, the loosened rock was hauled from the cut in wheelbarrows, where it was dumped over the side of the coulee near the project. Pay for this arduous work was $2.00 a day, for a ten hour shift.”

Janni had come to the US with his father, who was working on the copper hill in Butte, Mont. Janni joined the railroad, eventually working at Trinidad. Shortly after arriving at Trinidad, his father returned to Italy, leaving Janni alone in the US.

“Peter’s job consisted of carrying steel drills from the drill crews to the shop where they were sharpened, and back to the drillers when the steel had been reconditioned and tempered,” Ekman wrote. “At times, when no steel needed sharpening, he took a turn on a wheelbarrow, hauling rock from the diggings to the dump on the rim of the coulee. Although he was not required to haul rock, he was afraid he might be fired if caught not working. Since his father returned to Italy shortly after Peter's arrival at the Trinidad camp, the thought of being unemployed and alone in a strange land was indeed frightening.”

Janni was one of approximately 250 Italians that were part of a larger work crew building the tracks at Trinidad. Conditions in the camps were rough. The railroad provided food and shelter to their men, for a charge. One of the practices of the day was to charge company workers such that after expenses, they barely had any money left over. To reduce costs, some Italians would live in makeshift structures, whether it be tents or made out of whatever was available.

“Janni recalls that the men slept on sagebrush boughs covered with blankets, and that at times when the men awoke in the morning they would find that several rattlesnakes had moved in,” Ekman wrote.

Water was scarce, as it had to be hauled three miles up the hill from the river. Baths and clean clothes could only be acquired if the trek across the rattlesnake-infested desert was made.

Since the Italians wanted to save money by not eating the railroad’s food, they had to cook their own meals.

“Janni explained that the Italian men divided into groups of up to ten each,” wrote Ekman. “Each group constructed an oven for bread. Besides the economy factor, their love for bread doubtless was one of the reasons for living in an independent camp. Each group hired a cook whose salary of $2.00 a day was apportioned among its members.”

This now collapsed rock oven once had a beehive shape.

Baking bread in the rock ovens required more time to heat the oven than to bake the bread.
“First, a fire is built inside,” wrote Wegars. “After it burns down, the coals are raked out. The oven floor is swept clean and then sprinkled with cornmeal or flour. Next the loaves are placed inside after closing the flue hole in the rear of the oven’s roof; the door is sealed with a piece of metal or a damp cloth. The entire process took about two and one-half to three hours to prepare the coals, but only about 15 minutes of baking time at 450°F.”

At Trinidad, the bread would have been cooked with wood from sagebrush and placed in the oven with paddles made of driftwood.

Ekman wrote, “In a nostalgic mood Janni said: ‘The bread was so hard that if a man had been struck in the head by one of the loaves it would have killed him.’ Then he added, ‘But it was real bread.’"

Today, only one of the ovens at Trinidad is fully in tacked. A second one is still partially intact. Other ovens may be present, but they are difficult to find under the sagebrush and weeds growing in the area.

Another rock oven used to stand a few miles away, just north of Trinidad. However this one was torn down by the railroad several years ago. Other rock ovens have been reported on the west side of the river, across from Beverly; around Coulee City and in the Stratford area. It is unknown whether the Coulee City and Stratford oven accounts are true or accurate. Pictures have been taken of the Beverly oven, but it’s current condition is unknown. The Tumwater Canyon and Cheney have also had rock ovens found.

In addition to the rock ovens at Trinidad, there are quite a few round, rock walls that were probably also built by the Italians, possibly for the purpose of shelter.

“The independent Italians lived in makeshift tents, shacks made of whatever material could be found and crudely made stone huts,” wrote Ekman.

These structures don’t appear to have roofs that have caved in. Some are wide enough that three men could have cram into them to sleep. Others would only have been wide enough for one man. The true purpose of these walls is unknown.

A stone wall stands in the area of the rock ovens.
This structure could have possibly been a shelter for railroad workers.

Some distance from the campsite is the remains of a stone building. Local legend claims that it may have been a maintenance shed with track possibly running to it. This structure appears to have been a three-sided building. The ruins would suggest that the structure had a wood or canvas for the roof. While most of the walls are crumbled down, a window can still be seen in the rocks.

The remains of what may have been a mechanic’s shed
near the rock ovens at Trinidad.

How We Got the Grant County PUD

First published on April 24, 2019, in the Basin Business Journal - Moses Lake, WA

The historical information for this article was taken from a series of 1965 newspaper articles.

How did Grant County get its own Public Utility District? Those who have grown up in the county have taken the Grant County PUD existence for granted. They offer cheap, reliable power to those they serve. If one were to take a look at Grant County 100 years ago, electricity was sparse to non-existent.

The Grant County PUD was formed by a vote of the people on Nov. 8, 1938. That vote was a result of years of persistent work by those who opposed private entities, mainly Washington Water Power, owning electrical companies.

The first city in Grant County to get private power was Ephrata in 1916. It was a started “in an old stone garage” with a generator producing power, wrote Dave Johnson in a Grant County Journal article printed on Mar. 4, 1965 entitled “City Plants Furnished First Electricity.” The generator was turned on “each evening from dusk until midnight.” It was also turned on Monday mornings for the convenience of housewives who owned electric washing machines.

Quincy received power next, in 1917. Wilson Creek and Soap Lake also had privately owned power plants. These early power companies were small and typically didn’t have many customers.
Washington Water Power Company announced in January of 1922 “that it would spend $300,000 to build a 70-mile transmission line from Odessa to the areas of Marlin, Wilson Creek, Stratford, Adrian, Grant Orchards, Soap Lake, Ephrata and Moses Lake (Neppel) to provide electricity for pumping water from wells and lakes to 25,000 thirsty acres,” wrote Johnson in a Mar. 11, 1965 article entitled “Washington Water Power Enters County.”

Lines were strung immediately and were ready for use in May 1, 1922. The coming of electricity was a cause for excitement, with a celebration being held in Ephrata on May 12 and 13. Power allowed farmers to pump irrigation water to the desert.

“As early as 1921, the Washington State Grange was promoting a state law which would permit public acquisition of private power systems,” Johnson wrote in “PUD#1 Never Got Off Ground” that was published on Apr. 29, 1965.

Several attempts were made to get the law passed, but it failed four different times. Washington Water Power did not want this bill to succeed. They and other private “power companies fought the utility district bill by reducing rates, extending rural lines and announcing plans to build new power plants,” wrote Johnson. They claimed that the bill was “the most dangerous tax increase measure ever submitted to voters of the state.”

During this same time, the Washington Water Power Company was fighting the creation of the Grand Coulee Dam. While they agreed that the Basin needed irrigation, they were opposed to any idea that included a dam that generated electricity. The battle over the dam lasted many years with the proponents of the dam winning the battle.

Finally in 1930, the bill to allow public utility districts was put on the ballot as a voter initiative and passed. 

“On Oct. 5, 1931, a petition signed by 55 property owners in the Neppel precinct was presented to the Board of County Commissioners, asking that a PUD district be created in that area,” Johnson wrote.

It wasn’t until the election of the following year that the PUD was set up. The purpose of this PUD was to allow farmers who lived out of the Washington Water Power area to band together to pay for the construction of power lines to their homes and farms.

Once the formation of this PUD was approved, it was named Public Utility District No. 1 of Grant County. It was believe that there would be other utility districts forming, due to the lack of coverage that this district had. However, this PUD never became anything “more than a ‘paper organization,’” Johnson wrote. It never built any power lines or levied any taxes.

There was growing discontent with the way Washington Water Power dealt with those wishing to connect to their lines.

There “were a group of farmers who had built an extension line on a co-operative venture to hook up the Washington Water Power transmission lines near Wilson Creek,” wrote Johnson in the article entitled “Grange Led Fight To Create County PUD in 1938,” published on May 6, 1965. “Like others who had become rural customers of Washington Water Power, they were required to deed the line to the company as well as the transformers.”

During the general election on Nov. 8, 1938, a new public utility district was approved by voters. At the same time it was approved, three commissioners were elected.

“Grant County Public Utility District No. 2, the first county-wide PUD in Grant County, became the 18th such district to be formed in the state of Washington,” wrote Johnson.

Unlike the first utility district, this new district began levying taxes the following year. The first two years were spent organizing and exploring how they were going to acquire power lines.

On Dec. 30, 1941, the Grant County PUD was approved for a $600,000 loan through the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). The REA had been created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 11, 1935. All the money that have previously been levied had gone to setting up the PUD on paper. The loan, of which only $50,000 was borrowed, was used to purchase the PUD’s first two electric companies. One was in Soap Lake; the other was in Coulee City. These two systems totaled 24 miles of electric lines. Once these lines were making money, the PUD began looking at what other lines they could purchase. They set their sights on Washington Water Power lines in Grant County, with the exception of the Warden and Hartline areas.

On Nov. 13, 1944, a trial began between the PUD and Washington Water Power for condemnation of the private companies power lines. The trial lasted 17 days with jurors awarding the lines to the PUD for $546,984.80. Washington Water Power believed that their lines were worth twice that amount and sought a new trial. In June of 1945, the PUD gave Washington Water Power a certified check for $46,000 over the previously stated amount.

“The difference represented an increase in property valuation granted by the PUD in return for an agreement by Washington Water Power Co. to drop its appeal, and for accumulated interest on the amount awarded by the court back in December,” Johnson wrote, in the article “Condemnation Suit Launched PUD Into ‘Big Time,’” printed on May 27, 1965.


In the years to come, Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams would be built. Smaller projects, in the form of the Quincy Chute hydroelectric project and the Potholes East Canal Headworks hydroelectric project, would be constructed. Fiber lines would begin to be laid to provide the county with high speed internet. And the Grant County PUD would continue to provide cheap electricity to the residents of Grant County.

Early settlers to the Quincy Valley

First published on Sept. 27, 2012, in the Quincy Valley Post Register - Quincy, WA

Editor’s note: Information for this article was found in Faye Morris’ books “They Claimed a Desert” and “The Birth of a Town.”

Hartline Standard, Sept. 19, 1903 - “Two years ago this coming October, Quincy was nothing but a sign board-a-name.”

Joe Clay was the first settler to file a claim in the Quincy valley. His filing in 1901 was not the last. Within the months of September and October of 1901, 63 claims were filed. As settlers poured into the Quincy valley in the early 1900s, there were a few that claimed some important spots in Quincy’s history.

“One of the towns to the west that is certain to be of some importance in the near future is the siding on the (Great Northern) known as Quincy,” reported Wilson Creek’s Big Bend Chief on Dec. 27, 1901. “There has been a large influx of population there in the last two months.”

While Clay claims the title of the first settler to file a claim, it is unclear who the first settler to move to the area actually was. Charles Kildea came to Quincy in January of 1901.

“There was no snow on the ground and no one else here,” wrote Faye Morris regarding Kildea in “The Birth of a Town.” “He purchased some lumber in Ephrata and talked a brakeman into dumping it off at the Quincy siding. He then carried a few pieces at a time to a spot three miles south of the railroad siding.”

Kildea was the manager of the first hotel in town before eventually returning to Spokane. He never filled a claim.

Another early settler was J. A. Wilburn. Wilburn first came to Washington on April 11, 1894 with his family.

When he arrived in Ritzville, “he found the most dejected looking country he had ever seen in all his wanderings,” wrote Morris in “Birth of a Town.”

He eventually settled in Waterville. When he heard about Quincy, he decided to move again. His friends advised him against moving to the worthless area, but Wilburn plowed ahead. His enthusiasm and determination inspired others to settle in the area. He later became a Douglas County Commissioner.

Ashael L. Carlock was the first settler to live in what is considered today to be the town of Quincy. He and his family came in late 1901 or early 1902 – the date is unclear – and filed for 80 acres of land in what is now southeast Quincy. In the spring of 1902, “Quincy,” the seventh Carlock child was born. In 1903, Carlock harvested his wheat and had a well drilled. But that fall, he sold the land for $3,000 to Fidd Cochran, the well driller, and moved back to Missouri. His house once stood at 301 A Street SE.

Richard Coleman, a bachelor, purchased land at the railroad tracks for $7.50 an acre and built the Quincy Hotel on Division Street W near 1st Avenue SW, in 1902. Kildea was the first operator.

“On February 26, 1902, Mr. Coleman filed a plat of Original Quincy,” wrote Morris in “They Claimed a Desert.”“He had already proved up on a homestead near Lind and reported that he made money hand over fist at Quincy. That spring all his remaining holdings (in Quincy) were sold to David Richardson, a grain dealer of the Ritzville area for $1,560. Mr. Coleman then took up residence in a Spokane hotel where he spent much of his time advising newcomers that Quincy was the land of opportunity, according to the Adams County News of Ritzville.”

Dust Storms Cause Havoc for Early Quincy Settlers

“A slight breeze was waving the bunch grass, but all eyes were turned to the west where the soft breeze was coming from. Mrs. Fred Dahmen was the first to speak commandingly, 'We are going home, for I am scared.' She plainly showed the effect of what everyone saw over Saddle Mountains west of the Columbia River gorge. A terrible storm was forming. Mr. Domberger tried to calm people by saying, 'Naw, this is just a plain, old-time dust storm. Nothing serious. We used to have them lots of times in Nebraska where we used to live.' But this huge cloud could be plainly seen rolling up like a huge monster half a mile wide and gaining in speed and size every minute. It was so high it nearly reached the level of the mountains behind the river.”

Dust storms were once a normal occurrence for residents in the Quincy valley. While most did not reach the speed and intensity like the one in April 1908 described above by pioneer Anna M. Fleckenstein-Berner in the book “The Pioneer's Memory Book,” many have created extra work, frustration and disappointment for Quincy residents.

When settlers first arrived in the Quincy valley, dirt did not accompany the winds that blew through the area. But as settlers cleared the land, dirt and sand were stirred up and left exposed to the wind. In 1908, the lack of moisture and many acres of broken ground became the breeding ground for one of the worst storms in Quincy valley history.

The storm was first spotted at the beginning of church on the second Sunday in April. The residents of Burke scattered from church, gathered in their animals and braced for the storm.

“You could hear it roar like a mighty ocean on the beach,” recalled Fleckenstein-Berner. “It had a six mile width and the day was darkening as if the world was coming to an end. The house creaked, jerked and shivered as if the roof were going any minute. It was so bad a sandstorm, you could only see the barn 50 feet away from the house now and then between the sheets of sand. Everyone was too frightened to speak. The fires were out for safety for fear the chimney might go any time.”

When the storm finally ended Tuesday morning, buildings had moved, trees were broken or buried, crops were destroyed and two to three inches of sand covered the inside of houses.

“The memory of the 1908 dust storm, the heat and almost no crop worth harvesting in 1909 were good reasons to explain why more and more people began to leave the prairie,” wrote Faye Morris in her book, “They Claimed a Desert.” “There was hardly a month when someone loaded their belongings and left their cabin abandoned.”

As people left the area, the sagebrush began to grow back. When new settlers came to the area following the promise of irrigation, the sagebrush was once again cleared and dust storms ensued.

“More than one year during the spring, dust storms would come up,” recalled Kenneth Mattson, who first came to the area in 1945. “It would be nice in the mornings. About noon, the sun was gone, the wind would be going and so was the dust. People who had land all leveled up when the wind came up would have to re-level it.”

Farmers had to endure sand piles that buried equipment and covered roadways like snow drifts. Some had crops cut off by blowing sand.

The blowing dirt also caused frustration for housewives. Mattson recalled a friend who decided to clean her house during a reprieve from the constant wind. But, the wind came up once again, leaving a quarter inch of fine dust all over the clean house.

“One Oregon ditch rider heard the country was up and coming and wanted to see it,” said Mattson. “When he got here, he understood, cause it was up and coming.”

Lost Trinidad Gold - legend or truth?

First published on Oct. 6, 2011, in the Quincy Valley Post Register - Quincy, WA

Trinidad, Washington 1876 – John Welch and a party of gold miners, including Welch’s wife, young daughter, two nephews and part-Indian guide, passed through Trinidad on their way from the goldfields of British Columbia to their home in Portland, Ore. When they left, approximately 200 pounds of gold remained. The gold would have fetched around $250 per pound. Today, the gold would be valued at over $5 million.

Gold had been discovered along the Clearwater River in Idaho in 1860, and also along the Caribou Trail located north of Omak into Canada. Many left their homes and headed north in search of riches. Around the time John Welch and his party passed through Trinidad, some of the gold seekers had given up and settled down to farm the land. Those who settled in Eastern Washington had peaceful relationships with the Indians.

The Chinese miners along the Columbia River had a different experience.

“Chinese who had escaped the railroad chain gangs of California to seek gold along the river were being driven out or massacred, probably because the Chinese had taken Indian girls into their camps,” wrote Faye Morris in the book They Claimed a Desert.

 “The 1870 census of eastern Washington listed only two Chinese women in the region at the time,” said Tom Hackenmiller in the book, Wapato Heritage. “Loneliness and necessity brought Chinese men and Indian maidens together in marriage or other fleeting unions. The Indians resented that their young women cavorted with these unwanted Oriental interlopers.”

The conflict between the Chinese miners and the Indians started in the late 1850s and came to a boiling point in 1875 when Indians in the Chelan area killed over 300 Chinese miners.

Welch and his party had stopped just south of Trinidad on the first bench above the river when he learned of the Chinese/Indian conflicts and that Indians were on the warpath. The Indian guide suggested the miners hide the gold, then resigned as guide. The party decided to hide the gold they were carrying, along with other items they thought would help lighten their load and make them less vulnerable to Indian attacks. After drawing a map of the area and the hidden items, they crossed the river and headed for Ellensburg and their homes in the Portland area.

When they reached Portland, they tried to get a military escort back to Trinidad to retrieve the gold. The request was denied. Some of the facts of this visit to Trinidad are sketchy. As some stories go, the party knew they were being watched by Indians. Other stories say that they were searched by Indians after hiding the gold. Some wonder if there were only three men in the party and two died shortly after arriving in Portland. Others report at least four men in the party.

For the next 40 years, the record is silent. It appears that no one from the party came back to claim the hidden gold. After the turn of the 19th century, numerous attempts were made to find the gold. Each attempt and claimed success is shrouded by mystery and uncertainty. Some of the facts are uncertain and vary with each storyteller.

The Columbia River at Trinidad and Crescent Bar as it looked in 1918.
Courtesy of the Quincy Valley Historical Society

The first attempt to recover the hidden gold was made in the fall of 1906. The Quincy Quill mentioned that two men, one a Mr. Stevenson, came to Trinidad. Mr. Stevenson claimed to have been in the Welch party. Some say the second man was Mr. Welch himself.

As the story goes, the two men hired two Trinidad teenage boys to act as guides. The men searched for a week before leaving. Stevenson returned some time later, hired a wagon and was seen loading boxes onto the train when he left. It is unsure if he found the gold or not.

In an article by Rufus Woods, originally published in the Wenatchee Daily World on July 11, 1932, he wrote about a conversation he had with W. D. Van Slyke, the former Trinidad hotel keeper. Van Slyke related some of what a visiting old man had told him 25 to 30 years prior.

“He was one of the men who had left it there in 1876,” Van Slyke told Woods. “His story was that the party of miners had found it necessary to separate during the night. They left in parties of twos. He and his partner headed north along the Columbia, hiding in the day time and traveling at night. They crossed the dry canyon north of Trinidad, went over the hill and made their way across Rock Island Canyon, and later they crossed the Columbia. The man told me that the party was to meet in a certain hotel on a certain date in Portland but they never met.”

The visiting man searched the area, along with the help of one of the local teenage boys, for three weeks before leaving. The man would search the area, then return to one certain spot every evening, appearing to be regaining his bearings. Van Slyke said that two weeks after the man left, he and the boy went back to the search area. They found tracks from a team and buggy and holes where they assumed he had dug. The man had previously told Van Slyke the cache was impossible to find. But Van Slyke believed the tracks and holes indicated the man had found the gold after all. It is not certain if Van Slyke’s man was Stevenson on his return trip to the area or not. However, the two stories seem to fit together, making the possibility look probable.

Around 1909 or 1913, a lady named Mrs. Eliza Turtle or Anna Tuttle (The name varies depending on the story. Eliza Turtle seems to be a more likely name.) visited Trinidad, claiming to have been the small girl from the Welch party, and the only survivor. She had a map her father had made of the hidden gold and said the party hid the gold and personal items in two holes close to each other. She thought she might be able to find the gold if she could find the right area. Her attempts were unsuccessful. She returned multiple times, but found nothing.

“At first the people in the vicinity showed a keen interest in the quest for the gold and many of them instituted searching parties of their own,” wrote Rufus Woods in a Wenatchee Daily World article originally published on July 8, 1932, “but as no trace was ever found of the object of the quest, it became a tradition in and around Quincy that the entire story was a myth, and anyone who wasted any time looking for this gold which never existed was regarded as being slightly ‘off.’”

Somewhere between 1909 and 1912, Ted Williams and Harry Webley found some articles believed to have been hidden from the Welsh party. In an article entitled, "The Trinidad Gold: Fact or Fiction?," Faye Morris, author of They Claimed a Desert, told about this sighting.

"About 1912, Harry Webley reported that while setting traps in a cave, he and his father discovered two old pack saddles, several old cow bells and a small box containing a pair of eye glasses, some beads, several small bottles and a piece of silk cloth. According to Harry, they took the box but left the saddles. I have a letter written by Harry in which he relates his story. The Webleys had heard of the story of the lost gold and so spent some time searching the area before trying to locate Mrs. Tuttle. She had left her address at the Van Slack store in Trinidad, but the store had burned and her address lost. The stories don’t match, for she was not supposed to have visited the area until 1913. Other rumors say that Harry recovered the saddles and put them in the Ellensburg museum. However, the museum has no record of this."

In another article by Rufus Woods, originally published on July 9, 1932, relates seeing the items first hand during a a fact-finding trip to Quincy in which he and three men from Quincy visited the Webley home.

"There we saw some of the material – a piece of old dress goods, two pairs of old fashioned spectacles, comb, brush, jewel case and other small articles," wrote Woods. "The articles bore the unmistakable evidence of their long rest underground. Ted Williams and his sister each have at their homes other articles found."

In a July 8, 1932 article, Rufus Woods said that the saddles were found prior to Mrs. Turtle’s last visit. She was shown where they had been found and dug around the area for some time, but turned up empty.

The Columbia River as it looks today. The construction of Wanapum Dam
made the river behind the dam wider.

It was also reported that two men, claiming to have been hired to search for the gold, built a cabin in the Ancient Lakes area. They searched for several years before for one man mysteriously died. The other man stayed for year and disappeared.

Another gold seeker was Lynn Cramer of Vancouver. Cramer purchased a metal detector and began searching for the gold. When he wanted to get a better detector later on, he was told by the company that the owner, a Mr. Lincoln, had found 60 pounds of the hidden gold. His partner, Mr. Garret, confirmed the story some time later.

"Lynn theorized that this was probably the gold belonging to Welch’s two nephews," said Faye Morris in "Trinidad Gold". "This gold wasn’t buried as everyone had supposed, but was found three feet above the ground, stuck in a crevice in a large rock and covered with a flat rock. The description was so precise that I visited the area and found the spot where the dirt had sifted around the saddlebags to leave their print, so I feel that the story was true."

One other story tells of a homesteader who built his cabin close to the spot where some of the gold was supposedly found. He gave up his homestead after only a few years and embarked on a trip around the United States, stopping at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. He later bought a house in Quincy, where he lived the rest of his life. It is unclear if he found any of the gold.

The hidden gold at Trinidad is still a mystery today. No one is sure who actually found the gold or if it has really been found. Did Mr. Stevenson find most of the gold and Mr. Lincoln find the rest? Or did the Indian guide perhaps see where the Welch party hid the gold and come back to claim it for himself? Did the waters of Wanapum Dam cover whatever gold may still be hidden?

No one will ever know.