A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2022
IN BRIEF
Buoy 10 fi shery set to open Aug. 1
Buoy 10 will open for fi shing on Aug. 1.
When fi shing for salmon where the Columbia River
meets the ocean, the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife recommends targeting Chinook early in the
season and fi shing for coho later.
For safety reasons, the department recommends
staying above the Astoria Bridge during the slack and
ebbing tides. In the lower river, stay closer to take-
outs such as Hammond. Avoid the Clatsop Spit and
the Astoria shipping channel, which are unsafe during
the tide runout.
A BIG
ASSIST
Halibut fi shing days added
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
has added six more days of all-depth Pacifi c halibut
angling in the Columbia River subarea.
The additional days are Aug. 19, Aug. 25 and Aug.
28 and Sept. 3, Sept. 4 and Sept. 23. The subarea is
from Leadbetter Point, Washington, to Cape Falcon.
Fichot performance at
Liberty Theatre postponed
A performance by singer-songwriter Jessica Fichot,
which was scheduled for 7 p.m. on Saturday, has been
indefi nitely postponed by the Liberty Theatre.
The concert was planned as the opening event of
the venue’s season. The Liberty Theatre is currently
experiencing a staffi ng shortage due to an uptick in
COVID-19 cases. However, other upcoming events
remain as scheduled at this time.
Ticket-holders for the Fichot concert will be con-
tacted by the Liberty Theatre box offi ce. For more
information, visit www.libertyastoria.org
— The Astorian
Conservation group adds
monarch butterfl ies to its ‘red list’
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The monarch butterfl y
fl uttered a step closer to extinction Thursday, as sci-
entists put the iconic orange-and-black insect on the
endangered list because of its fast dwindling numbers.
“It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm,
an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved
in the new listing. “This is one of the most recogniz-
able butterfl ies in the world.”
The International Union for the Conservation of
Nature added the migrating monarch butterfl y for the
fi rst time to its “red list” of threatened species and
categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from
extinct.
The group estimates that the population of mon-
arch butterfl ies in North America has declined
between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on
the measurement method.
“What we’re worried about is the rate of decline,”
said Nick Haddad, a conservation biologist at Mich-
igan State University. “It’s very easy to imagine how
very quickly this butterfl y could become even more
imperiled.”
Haddad, who was not directly involved in the list-
ing, estimates that the population of monarch but-
terfl ies he studies in the eastern United States has
declined between 85% and 95% since the 1990s.
In North America, millions of monarch butterfl ies
undertake the longest migration of any insect species
known to science.
— Associated Press
DEATH
July 19, 2022
In SALIKIE,
Brief
Gracie Darling, 87, of Astoria, died in
Astoria. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary of Astoria
is in charge of the arrangements.
Death
ON THE RECORD
DUII
• Oscar H. Fabian
On
the
Record
•
Omar
Antonio
Rodriguez, 23, of Sea-
Rivera Acevedo, 21, of
Mount Pleasant, South
Carolina, was arrested
on Sunday on W. Marine
Drive in Astoria for driv-
ing under the infl uence of
intoxicants.
side, was arrested on
July 14 on Ridge Road
near the Warrenton Soc-
cer Complex for DUII,
reckless driving and fail-
ure to carry or present a
license.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Seaside City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway.
TUESDAY
Astoria Planning Commission, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
Seaside Airport Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall,
989 Broadway.
Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main
Ave.
Clatsop Community College Board, 6:30 p.m., special
session, Columbia 219, 1651 Lexington Ave., Astoria.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Interim City Manager Paul Benoit, Blaze the Trail Cat and Mayor Bruce Jones cut a ribbon to offi cially reopen the playground at
Violet LaPlante Park in Alderbrook on Thursday. Moda Health and the Portland Trail Blazers generated funds for the improvements.
Stories of lost gold and hidden
treasures dot the Oregon Coast
Tales as tall
as the trees
coast.
“That’s a new one,” said
Meryl Boice, the former pres-
ident of the Curry County
Historical Society in Gold
Beach, “I never heard of it.”
By KRISTIAN FODEN-
VENCIL
Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Oregon C oast was
buzzing recently with news of
the possible discovery of the
Spanish galleon that inspired
the plot of “The Goonies.”
But in truth, the coast is
home to many legends of lost
treasure. Talk to the right peo-
ple in just about any commu-
nity along the Pacifi c Ocean,
and you’ll eventually fi nd a
tale of fortunes won, lost …
or buried for some lucky soul
to stumble across.
“I’ve been kind of on a
roll of buried treasure, lost
gold mine stories and stuff
like that,” said pop historian
Finn J.D. John, an instructor
at Oregon State University’s
School of Communication.
Gold cache
Recently, John has been
researching the Randolph
Trail gold cache, which was
supposedly hidden 170 years
ago by the Grouleaux broth-
ers or maybe the Groslius
brothers; diff erent sources
have diff erent spellings.
Whatever their name, they
lived in the Willamette Val-
ley, and back in 1849, they
headed south for California.
“People in Oregon got
a real head start on the gold
rush when it broke out,” John
said. “They got there long
before everyone else got
around the horn to show up
and start digging. So they got
a big jump.”
But instead of leaving
the state by way of the Wil-
lamette Valley to make their
fortune, like other Orego-
nians with dreams of gold
on their way to California,
the brothers made their way
along the coast.
“This was a terrible idea
of course, for geological rea-
sons, if nothing else because
of all the rivers they’d have to
fi gure out how to get across,”
John said.
But their choice proved
fortuitous, because when the
brothers reached the beaches
south of Coos Bay, they saw
a glistening sheen of gold in
the sand — at least, that’s
what the stories tell us.
Similar tales
Katie Frankowicz/KMUN
Marine archaeologist James Delgado, left, and beachcomber
Craig Andes, right, examine a shipwreck timber removed
from the sea caves north of Manzanita that may be from the
famous wreck of a Spanish galleon.
“It was black, and it had
sparkles in it,” John said.
“And on a lark, they dipped
some out with a gold pan and
sluiced it around and discov-
ered that there was indeed
gold on the beach.”
The brothers probably
would have tested what they
found, to make sure it wasn’t
fools gold, also known as iron
pyrite. It turned out, they’d
found the real thing.
“There’s nobody around.
Everybody in the area has
gone inland to go south for
the gold fi elds,” John said.
“And there they are with this
massive bonanza just crunch-
ing under their feet. So of
course, they got busy.”
The brothers had brought
plenty of provisions, and the
hunting was good, so they
prospected all summer. As
their fl our sacks emptied,
they refi lled the bags with
gold. For three years they
returned, unbeknownst to
anyone.
“You would think that
people would think: ‘Oh,
these guys are onto some-
thing.’ But of course, a lot of
people who were going south
were hitting pay dirt, so it was
easier to fl y under the radar,”
John said.
Miners were a secre-
tive bunch by nature. Claim
jumping was a real threat
back then, as were bandits.
But by their fourth year, the
brothers’ secret was out and
miners fl ocked to s outhern
Oregon.
Boom towns like Ran-
dolph
sprouted
almost
overnight.
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In the 1957 book “Lost
Mines and Treasures of the
Pacifi c Northwest,” author
Ruby El Hult describes the
scene: “... a thousand men
milled about on the black
sands, staking claims for
miles up and down the beach.
Cabins, stores, saloons and
gambling houses were hastily
erected, becoming the boom
town of Randolph.”
Already rich, the Grou-
leaux brothers decided to sell
their claim for $40,000, the
equivalent of about $1.5 mil-
lion today. They also decided
not to hang around.
Still, they faced one big
problem. They were laden
with gold, and there was only
one path out of town – today
it’s known as Seven Dev-
ils Road – and they worried
about being robbed. As John
tells it, the story goes that
they found a distinctive-look-
ing cedar tree and stashed two
gunpowder cans full of gold,
$40,000 worth, beneath it.
The brothers got home
safely
and
presumably
enjoyed living on the money
they’d found during their fi rst
three years mining in Oregon.
They traveled to Europe. One
died in England, the other
didn’t return to look for the
gold for 20 years.
“I don’t know how one
burns through a stash like
that,” John said. “But some
people have superpowers. So
he wanted his stash, $40,000
and he couldn’t fi nd it.”
Now the story of the lost
Randolph Trail cache is just
one of many buried trea-
sure stories people tell on the
For years, Boice col-
lected similar tales and pub-
lished them in the society’s
newsletter.
Like the one from old
miner Tommy East. He told
of a Native American man,
dying of pneumonia, being
nursed by a kindly couple.
“He had some gold, and
he put in his pants and tied
the legs and stuck it in a hol-
low tree and put leaves on it.
And told this couple where it
was, when he knew he was
not going to make it,” Boice
said. “They went out, after he
passed away, and looked and
nobody ever found it.”
So somewhere on the
coast, there’s $35,000 worth
of 1850s gold stashed in a
pair of buckskin breeches.
Maybe ...
The thing is, there’s little
if any original documentation
for such stories, so it’s hard to
know what’s true and what’s
been fabricated or embel-
lished. Still, John is relatively
confi dent about the Randolph
Trail cache legend.
“I think there’s a zero per-
cent chance that every sin-
gle particular is true,” he said.
“And I think that there’s a
100% chance that most of it
is true.”
Also in the 1930s, there
was a rumor that the cans
had been found by an uniden-
tifi ed couple. Apparently,
they’d seen a rusty gun bar-
rel sticking out from under an
old tree stump. So they dug
around and found two old
gunpowder cans containing
150 pounds of gold.
But John thinks that stash
is probably attributable to an
old miser, known for bury-
ing his money in the area.
John points out the amount of
gold doesn’t match the Ran-
dolph Trail cache and the
cans would have rusted away
after 80 years in the coastal
climate.
“There would have been
nothing left,” he said. “There
wouldn’t have been cans,
there would have just been a
bunch of gold in the ground.”
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