Fort Ramirez is in the southern part of Live Oak County on my father’s
ranch. When I was a boy some of the old rock walls were ten or twelve
feet high, though they were crumbling. As far back as I can remember or
have heard men tell, there were holes that had been made by treasure
seekers all along the walls, inside the room, and for hundreds of yards
out from the place. When I revisited the location last summer, I found
the walls all down, most of the rock lugged to one side, and indeed a
large part of the foundation dug out. Some of the excavated stones
weighed, I dare say, two hundred pounds. The ruins are on the point of
a hill that overlooks the immense but dry bed of Ramireña Creek, which,
nevertheless, back in the days of the open range was nearly always
running, men of that time say. A deep but short gorge called Ramirez
Hollow runs up near the hill.
I
There are two distinct legends about the old place: in one it is a
fort; in the other, an old sheep ranch. Of later years, the fort idea
seems to have gained ground. Mr. E. M. Dubose of Mathis says that he
first got “the straight” of the matter from an old Mexican who was
looking for the Casa Blanca site. According to this Mexican, a band of
bandidos had in early days captured the fort from Spanish priests who
were using it as a kind of ungarrisoned mission. The bandits pillaged
the place of a cross of precious metal, golden candle-sticks, and other
costly paraphernalia, and took up their headquarters in a secret cave a
short distance east of the building. Later they were run out of the
country by the Texans, leaving in the cave all their churchly plunder
as well as much money that they had robbed from freighters and
ranchmen. The problem with treasure seekers has been to locate the
cave, of which there is now no sign.
In trying to make the location, Dubose and his party used at first a
“gold monkey,” or mineral rod. This “monkey” was supposed to oscillate
towards rich mineral until it got over it, then to halt. It oscillated
all right, and under its guidance the treasure seekers dug two holes,
both to the west of the fort.
Then Dubose went to Victoria to consult a famous mulatto fortune
teller. The fortune teller described Fort Ramirez satisfactorily and
said that he could and would locate a buried chest of money near the
place for $500. The agreement was made, and one dark night Dubose drove
the mulatto to the fort. The fortune teller led at once to the north
corner and, walking thence east a few paces, planted his foot down and
said: “Here it is. With this spot as the center, dig a round hole ten
feet in diameter.” The two went back to Wade’s Switch that night, and
when they got there the negro demanded his $500. Dubose told him that
he would have to wait until the money was dug up, and offered to allow
him to be present at the ceremony, but he refused to stay. He declared
that unless he was paid his fee at once, “spirits would move the box”
and that it would be useless for anyone to try to find it.
He was not paid at once, but in spite of the threatened futility of
digging, a few days later two white men, aided by two or three Mexican
laborers, were digging a great hole circumscribing the point marked by
the fortune teller. When they had got down six or seven feet, they came
upon a loose soil that was different in color from the contiguous
earth. It appeared to be “the filling” in some old hole. Hopes became
feverish, but after about a barrel of the extraneous earth had been
removed, the foreign matter petered out, and at the depth of twelve
feet the men quit digging.