Peralta Stones
Engraved stones in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Peralta Stones are a set of engraved stones suppsedly indicating the location of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, in Arizona, United States. [Note 1]
The story goes that the stones are named for an obscure "Peralta family", supposedly an old and powerful Mexican family. Some people named Peralta owned a cattle ranch that included what is now Oakland, California at the time of the Mexican–American War. Another Peralta, Pedro de Peralta, was the governor of the Spanish territory in New Mexico, and picked the site for Santa Fe. Nevertheless, the Peralta surname is common in Spain and Mexico, and it became associated with the "Peralta" mine by James Reavis. Reavis popularized the idea of a rich Peralta family in Arizona in 1882 when he tried to assert a phony Peralta Spanish land grant which included a huge swath of Arizona and New Mexico, including the Superstition Mountains. His forged Peralta genealogy was exposed, and he served a prison sentence for fraud. According to current legend, but not supported by the historical record, some Peraltas mined in the Superstition Mountains. The first written reference to a “Peralta mine” in the Superstitions was in 1895, by writer Pierpont C. Bicknell.[2]