Freddy Crystal was a bedraggled prospector who apparently had very little luck with any actual prospecting. He showed up in the town of Kanab in 1914 looking for a grubstake. Crystal had just returned from Mexico with a drawing of some Aztec petroglyphs, which, if he was able to find, would lead him to Montezuma's treasure. He found a well to do rancher named Oscar Robison. He told Robison the tale of the infamous treasure. $10,000,000 worth of gold bars, shields, plates and pendants lined with emeralds and rubies. In the end Robison agreed to stake him.
Crystal searched every inch of the canyon in the perspective area for months. He eventually found the petroglyphs in Johnson's Canyon. It was a perfect match with his drawing to a T. He searched and searched the canyon's slopes for two years without result after which he just seemed to vanish. Nobody saw him again for four years until he returned and knocked on Mr. Robison's door. He didn't have much to say, but the story that he did tell was a great one.
The story is that he was in Mexico City and during this time period an old Mexican monastery was being demolished and the contents removed to make way for new construction. The way that Freddy describes the situation was that it was one in which anybody could simply walk into the unguarded, partially demolished building and pretty much take anything that struck your fancy. So it was that he was leafing through some very old manuscripts that he claimed dated from the time of Hernan Cortez and had been written by one of the many friars that were around in that time period. While turning the pages of these old manuscripts (In his story Freddy relates that the manuscripts appeared to have been written on bark) an old parchment fell out and onto the ground. Stooping down to retrieve the parchment Freddy noticed that it was a map. Upon closer inspection Freddy was surprised to realize that the geography depicted on the map was very similar to the geography of Southern Utah…or rather, one place in particular that was on the outskirts of a little town by the name of Kanab. After some additional research Freddy was convinced that it was a map of the possible location of Montezuma’s treasure. The particular friar who’d written the manuscript that Freddy had been leafing through was relating the torturing of Aztecs that was undertaken by Cortez & his men in an effort to discover the hidden location of the treasure of Tenochtitlan. As we know, Hernan eventually conquers and seizes control of the capital city of the Aztec nation (Tenochtitlan), but discovers that in his absence the great bulk of the treasure that had initially been there had been removed and secreted in a different location. In desperation Cortez allowed for the torturing of anybody who they thought might help them discover the new location of the treasure. As the story goes the most that was ever uncovered by torturing these poor people was that the treasure had been taken north and secreted/hidden at the bottom of a lake. Cortez would search approximately 5,000 lakes in the surrounding regions in an effort to find it…he never did.
After reading several pages of the manuscript, including the pages which the map had originally been tucked in between Freddy reached the conclusion that this particular map had been drawn by the Friar as it was related to him by one of the original porters of the treasure during his torture. Apparently the Friar had drawn the map based upon the description given by the porter and subsequently tucked it into the manuscript and then forgot about it. So it was that Freddy rediscovered the map and with great excitement on his part began taking steps to travel back to Utah.
So with map in hand, Freddy began an intensive search for the area, but Southern Utah is full of similar geographical landmarks and canyons that look identical to each other and so it took Freddy a while to actually pinpoint the area indicated on the map. Incredibly however, on the last Sunday in November of 1922, after 2 years, Freddy actually found the location based upon the description given on the map. While atop Sheep Mountain, he pulled out his map and then looked around at the surrounding sandston hills. Shortly after, shouting could be heard through the canyons for miles. The main canyon, with side draws, seven mountains, each in it's proper order. Crystal had found Montezuma's treasure! Or had he? He scampered down the mountain and ran over to the sight. After about ten anxious minutes, he found steps that were carved into the mountain. He quickly climbed the steps and at the end he found what appeared to be a false wall in the cliff face. Freddy broke down the false wall and behind it laid the entrance to a long dark corridor. On both sides of the corridor were statues (believed to have been placed there to protect the entrance) and a few feet within the corridor was an old pair of leather sandals that had almost completely rotted away; both the sandals and statues appeared to be of ancient origin and Freddy figured that he had finally hit the jackpot. A quick investigation revealed that the corridor went back a short ways and ended in a wall of rock that upon closer examination appeared to be another false wall.
With his new found evidence Freddy returned to Kanab and began telling people about his discovery. The majority of Kanabites believed Freddy and eventually a coalition was organized by the town council in which people could volunteer a certain number of hours per week dedicated to the excavation of the treasure area. Hundreds of people volunteered for the chance to participate in the greatest treasure hunt of all time. Many people, including an old uncle of mine dedicated their Saturday’s to helping with the excavation of the area and some estimate that at one point as many as 75% of the population of Kanab were involved in the recovery of the treasure.
Freddy together with the people of Kanab continued to search the area for 2-3 years and in the process broke down innumerable false walls and discovered lots of different rooms that would lead to yet more corridors and rooms. As the months went by, more and more people lost interest stopped volunteering to work at the site. Eventually Freddy was left with only a few people who still believed that something would be found. It was at this point that Freddy came to the conclusion that he had been following a false trail and that the real entrance lay at the base of the canyon rather then further up along it's rim. Unfortunately the “tailings” of the excavation had been dumped into the bottom of the canyon and over the months and years the pile of tailings had turned into a small mountain that would prove difficult to move. Freddy was convinced that the entrance to the real treasure location lay at the bottom of the tailings and so they commenced in removing the tailings that they had just spent the last 3 years accumulating. In the end the only thing that was ever found were the original statues, sandals and various booby traps that were set by the builders. Freddy left the area and disappeared and nobody knows what finally happened to him. The mountain of tailings was never completely hauled away and there is some modern day speculation that perhaps Freddy was correct and the real entrance to the treasure still lies buried by the tailings that are there to this day.
The diggings undertaken by Freddy Crystal are still evident and visible to this day and if you know how to locate them it’s still fun to walk the corridors and wonder if the actual treasure is still somewhere close by. Many of the corridors have been back filled and only a small portion of the actual labyrinth that was discovered by Freddy still remains. A note of caution; what remains of the actual cave system is still dangerous and there are many deep holes that disappear into the earth at various points along the length of the principal corridor. Please make certain that you exercise caution when walking the corridor…the site is located in the middle of nowhere and the nearest hospital is many miles away. One last thing…if you plan on taking a trip out to see the cave system you should take somebody who has been before…the entrance is very well hidden and if you’re not familiar with the area you’ll never find it…you could spend years looking for it and walk right by it without ever knowing.
