|
 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 D u t c h m a n 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. |
