Hidden Treasures Of The Gem State

Goonie's never die.

If you've never seen The Goonie's, you need to run, not walk, to purchase the DVD and watch it 500 times on repeat. Living in the Northwest and visiting the locations where the movie was filmed, made it even more exciting to think about buried treasure and the adventure to find it.

Over the years, as stories of lost treasures are told from person to person, or wrote about and re-written, the stories change. And it’s because of the inaccuracies of the story, that makes most treasures unable to be located. But these treasures have been said to be hidden within the Gem State.

• A gold miner in the 1890’s found a large amount of diamonds along the banks of Goose Creek near Rock Flat. The miner stated that he had found so many diamonds, by accident and that they had filled two bushels. The miner then buried some of the diamonds. After a flood had destroyed where he had placed his markers, he was unable to locate his cache of diamonds.

• Robbers Gulch on the Salmon River, More than a century ago, outlaws held up a freight wagon carrying some $75,000 in miner's gold and hid it among the rocks before heading toward the rough Seven Devils area. But, every last one was shot before anyone thought to ask about the whereabouts of the stolen loot. To date, the gold has never been found.

• In 1897 the owner of the Twin Springs Ranch, on the east side of Battle River, told a story on his deathbed, that he had buried $100,000 in California gold coins near his home. The treasure, apparently has never been found.

• Sometime around the year 1900, a bank was robbed in the Wallace-Kellogg area and the bandits made off with some $80,000. Hiding out from the authorities overnight, they were said to have buried their cache somewhere in the four-mile stretch between Huettner and Post Falls. However, with the posse on their tails, they were captured the next morning. The authorities could not find the stolen loot and presumably the bandits were hanged. To this day, it has never been recovered.
• In 1888, an outlaw acting alone robbed the Jarbridge-Idaho stage near the site of present-day Salmon Dam. The bandit was quickly overtaken and killed by a posse but the gold was not found. Many believe that the outlaw buried the strongbox somewhere on the east side of Brown's Bench, a large flat mesa, about 15 miles west of Rogerson, Idaho.

Have you ever searched for hidden treasure? Do you believe the stories that have been passed down?