Long Tom's treasure is a legend in

American folklore American folklore encompasses the folklores that have evolved in the present-day United States since Europeans arrived in the 16th century. While it contains much in the way of Native American tradition, it is not wholly identical to the tribal ...

said to have taken place in the Grand Canyon of

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, four miles west of the Tanner immigrant trail, near a

Havasupai The Havasupai people (Havasupai: ''Havsuw' Baaja'') are an American Indian tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for at least the past 800 years. ''Havasu'' means "blue-green water" and ''pai'' "people". Located primarily in an area know ...

village.Hidden Treasures of Arizona
In 1910 "Long Tom" Watson found papers in a cabin written by outlaws. The papers described a cache of stolen gold hidden behind a

seasonal A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in severa ...

in the canyon. Beginning in 1912, Watson searched the area until spring of 1914 when he decided to give up. While returning home on Horse Thief Trail from Morgan Point, Watson sighted a waterfall, after hiking to it he found a cave behind the water and entered it. Inside he discovered an unspecified amount of gold nuggets but as Watson was about to leave, he slipped, fell, and broke his leg. Leaving the gold behind, Long Tom Watson crawled his way to the nearby Buggelin Ranch. Watson later recovered from his injury and began a new search but he could not find the waterfall and ended up committing suicide.

References

{{Arizonatreasure Treasure of the United States American frontier Long Tom's Long Tom's American folklore