Customer Reviews

Coronado's Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest (Barker Texas History Center Series)

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The author, a premier folklorist from Texas, writes about the Southwest and the type of treasure with which nature consoles the seeker -- "shadows for want of substantials." Unlike Coronado, the author seeks the treasure that emanates from the heart and mind. This is a fine book written seven decades ago and improves with each reading.

Dobie talks about this land of shadows where we meet Alice Henderson, who faced down fifty cow thieves; Don Milton Favor, who built his own fort while making treaties with hostile Indians; and Cheetwah, a mystic Indian chief who vanished into the mountains to keep vigil over hidden treasures. These and other characters spring from the pages of Dobie's book with a vigor and purpose that makes the heart sing.

The Texas of the Big Bend country is where Dobie's prose satisfies, "Outlandish pictures painted down the sides of caves by aborigines which no white man can now decipher...a jagged and gashed land where legend has placed a lost canyon, its broad floor carpeted with grass that is always green and watered by gushing springs, its palisaded walls imprisoning a herd of buffalo...somewhere in this land credulity has fixed a petrified forest with tree trunks seven hundred feet long."

The author claims, "After I hear a tale I do all I can to improve it," and this is an understatement. Readers who possess a sense of wonder will enjoy this book. History often cloaks personages with dusty trappings, stuffy sayings, and mixed motives so time has faded the awe that Drake, Cortez, Raleigh, and Coronado experienced. Dobie illuminates the wonder of the children of Coronado as they chase their dreams and draws us into their world of enchantment.

Francisco Coronado never found his golden riches or the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola during his time in the Southwest. When he returned in 1542, and told the truth about his barren search, he wasn't believed. One person who did believe said, "Granted he did not find the riches of which he had been told -- he found instead a place in which to search for them."

And the search continues. For centuries Coronado's vision of wealth has lured countless thousnads to the Southwest where tradition and myth have marked mountains, rivers, and ancient ruins with boundless treasures. This book follows long forgotten Spanihs trails, buffalo trails, cow trails, and areas where there are no trails as searchers dig for riches which eludes their grasp. Others, rather than searching, have sat and told stories of lost mines, buried treasure and of ghostly patrones who guard the treasures -- adding layers to the myths that abound in the land of Coronado.

This book lovingly describes Spanish influence and tradition on the Sountwest and combines a terrific cast of characters, interesting situations, and Dobie's unmatched skill at weaving a tale. The author's footnotes are at the end of the text and are filled with tales and legends of lost mines and treasures. There's an interesting section on the elaborate Code of Treasure Symbols used by the Spaniards. An excellent glossary of idioms used in the Southwest follows that section.

There is more to the American West than gunfighters, farmers, bankers, cowboys, and miners. The author has given us the realm of the dreamers.

I read this book 30 years ago. I am now 75, and I rank it as one of the most fascinating books of my lifetime. It opened up a whole world of places and things that are long gone, but which deserve to be remembered. I believe that I have since read almost everything that Frank Dobie has written, but believe this is still the best.

Perhaps the best folklore book ever written about lost mines and buried treasure, caves full of gold bars, and Spanish silver. As in most of Dobie's writings, this is not straight history but Dobie's version of other people stories with a large dose of Dobie in all of them. A Texas classic.

J. Frank Dobie was a folklorist of Texas and "Coronado's Children" may be his best and most famous book. He was born in 1888 and bridged the old west and modern times. CC was written in 1930 when many of the old timers, who knew how to spin a yarn, were still around. Dobie sought them out and recorded their stories of lost gold and buried treasure. He was also a serious scholar who rummaged through Spanish and American archives to give authenticity to his stories -- and he was not adverse to saddling up a horse and doing a little on-the-ground research.

"Coronado's Children" has inspired thousands of otherwise normal people to pick up a shovel and head off to some god-forsaken wasteland to dig in the ground looking for the "Lost San Saba Mine," the booty of pirate Jean Lafitte, or the $2 million the James boys supposedly buried in the Wichita mountains of Oklahoma. These are the kind of stories that dreams are made of -- and who knows? Some of them might be true.

Dobie has collected nineteen tales in CC and he tells them beautifully in prose that is conversational and colorful. He has enormous respect for the land and the Indians, the Mexicans, and the Anglos who live in the harsh, dry country of the southwest. An oft-used adjective to describe his stories is "magical" and so they are. "Coronado's Children" is an American classic.

Smallchief

Not at the level for me of Tales of Old-time Texas but still an excellent collection of stories from J. Frank Dobie. This collection is focused, as the title should tell you, on buried treasure, treasure maps and things of that nature. The book is still a joy to read and I don't understand why more of the country doesn't know about Mr. Dobie.

A lot of fictional tales of legendary silver/gold mines heavily embellished by Dobie. Not much character development, just a list of events and people, usually non-miners, who found a rich vein by accident, let it lie for some reason, then came back months or years later and couldn't relocate the find. The finds were always high-grade ore, or even solid silver/gold, and always disappeared. Cowboys and indians, ranchers and soldiers, yada, yada, yada. Badly illustrated, no maps worth mentioning.

For the story of a real miner, who found real ore, experienced actual life-threatening events, and lived to tell about it, get Deep Enough by Frank Crampton. Much, much better than this tripe.