Mojave County

Kingman lies due west of Flagstaff, at the junction of Interstate 40 and US 66, almost in the dead center of Mojave County. About two miles west of Kingman, somewhere south of an old stagecoach stop called Beale Spring, may lie the buried remains of a stage, its team and driver, and three passengers. Also, nearby, may be heavy wood and iron box filled with gold ingots valued in 1880 at $200,000.

The fact that the stage disappeared is in the records. It left Beale Spring for Needles, California on a June night in 1880. Four men saw it leave the station. It is believed it was stopped by three bandits, one of whom was "Hualapai Joe" Desredo. Shortly after the disappearance Desredo and his comrades were killed in a gunfight with lawmen. Before he died, Desredo admitted holding up the stage and burying the box of gold. He denied harming the driver, a man named John "Johnny Jump" Upshaw, or the passengers. Desredo said that after unloading the box he and his men allowed the stage to proceed on toward Needles. He added however, that a strange thing happened as the stage was leaving. "I could hear wheels cracking against rocks and Johnny jumped up yelling at his team." Said Desredo. Then all at once I couldn't hear the stage wheels and Johnny jumped yelling no more." It just "vanished into nowhere."

The area was searched, including the spot where Desredo said he and his men buried the box (the bandits intended to return later with a wagon and haul it away). Nothing was found: no horses, men stage, or gold.

As the years went by, nearly everyone forgot about the incident. Then in 1940 an Arizona historian who wrote under the name Maurice Kildare was approached by a Mojave County character named Max Bordon. Bordon, a hermit who lived most of his life in and around the Black Mountain range of western Mojave County, claimed he had found the stage. It had been swallowed up by a wide fissure at the edge of a deep wash. Apparently in the darkness, Upshaw had wandered off the trail and into the crack. Much of the remains had been washed away, but part of the coach was still there, and some of the bones of the passengers were still inside. Bordon took Kildare to the spot but made him promise that he would tell no one else. Max evidently did not want to be disturbed by treasure seekers. Kildare kept his word. Then World War II came along. During the war years, Bordon apparently died. After the war Kildare informed the Mojave County sheriff of the incident, but the sheriff didn't not seem interested.

More years went by. Maurice Kildare is now gone. The stage is probably still out there, and maybe the gold. Kildare did not say if he tried to return to the spot, only that he "couldn't begin to find that place" again. Probably so: when Kildare went with Bordon to the site, they approached it from the south, from Bordon's camp in the Sacramento Valley west of Yucca. Did Kildare try reaching it from Beale Spring, following the most likely route that would be used by a stage line in 1880?