$1m treasure in Rocky Mountains has been found, says Forrest Fenn
Artifacts dealer claims treasure he buried a decade ago has been found, Santa Fe newspaper reports
Forrest Fenn, an eccentric millionaire, says he hid his treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains a decade ago.
Famed art and antiquities collector Forrest Fenn, who said he hid $1m in treasure in the Rocky Mountain wilderness a decade ago, said Sunday that the chest of goods has been found.
Fenn, 89, told the Santa Fe New Mexican that a treasure hunter located the chest a few days ago. The man who found it does not want his name mentioned.
He’s from back East, Fenn said, adding that it was confirmed from a photograph the man sent him. Fenn did not reveal exactly where it had been hidden.
Fenn posted clues to the treasures whereabouts online and in a 24-line poem that was published in his 2010 autobiography The Thrill of the Chase.
Hundreds of thousands have hunted in vain across remote corners of the US west for the bronze chest believed to be filled with gold coins, jewelry and other valuable items.
Some have said it was a hoax and pursued lawsuits.
Many quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the search and others depleted their life savings. At least four people are believed to have died searching for it.
Fenn, who lives in Santa Fe, said he hid his treasure as a way to tempt people to get into the wilderness and give them a chance to launch an old-fashioned adventure and expedition for riches.
For more than a decade, he packed and repacked his treasure chest, sprinkling in gold dust and adding hundreds of rare gold coins and gold nuggets. Pre-Colombian animal figures went in, along with prehistoric mirrors of hammered gold, ancient Chinese faces carved from jade and antique jewelry with rubies and emeralds.
Fenn told The New Mexican in 2017 that the chest weighs 20lb (9kg ) and its contents weigh another 22lb (10kg). He said he delivered the chest to its hiding place by himself over two separate trips.
Asked how he felt now, Fenn said: “I don’t know, I feel halfway kind of glad, halfway kind of sad because the chase is over.”
Forrest Fenn was a pilot in the United States Air Force, obtaining the rank of Major and awarded the Silver Star for his service in the Vietnam War where he flew 328 combat missions in 365 days. He retired from the Air Force and ran the Arrowsmith-Fenn Gallery with his partner Rex Arrowsmith, which became the Fenn Galleries which he operated with his wife Peggy. The gallery was located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and sold a variety of American Indian artifacts, paintings, bronze sculptures, and other art, including forged copies of works by Modigliani, Monet, Degas, and other artists. The gallery reportedly grossed $6 million a year.
In 1988, Fenn was diagnosed with cancer and given a prognosis that it was likely terminal. This inspired him to hide a treasure chest in an outdoor location with the purpose of creating a public search for it. He also intended the location to be his final resting place, with the treasure as a legacy. He recovered from the illness and in 2010 self-published The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir, a collection of short stories from his life. He describes a treasure chest that he says contains gold nuggets, rare coins, jewelry, and gemstones. He goes on to write that he hid the chest "in the mountains somewhere north of Santa Fe". Fenn says that the stories in the book contain hints to the chest's location as well as the poem found in the chapter "Gold and More" that contains nine clues that will lead a searcher to the chest. Fenn's book and story prompted a treasure hunt in the Rocky Mountains
