page_title: Peralta Stones
hierarchical_section_title: Peralta Stones
caption_attribution_description: English: Peralta Stones reverse side revealing the Stone Cross outline and the word DON.
context_page_description: The Peralta Stones are a set of engraved stones. Some people believe they indicate the location of the famed Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, in Arizona, United States. The Dutchman was a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz.
  The stones are named for the Peralta family, said to be an old and powerful Mexican family. Peralta is a common Hispanic surname. Some people named Peralta owned a cattle ranch that included what is now Oakland, California at the time of the Mexican–American War. Pedro de Peralta was the governor of the Spanish territory in New Mexico, and picked the site for Santa Fe. James Reavis popularized the idea of a rich Peralta family in Arizona in 1882, when he tried to assert the phony Peralta Spanish land grant, which included a huge swath of Arizona and New Mexico, including the Superstition Mountains; Reavis' forged Peralta genealogy was exposed, and he served a prison sentence for fraud. According to current legend, but not supported by the historical record, some Peraltas mined in the Superstition Mountains. The first written reference to a “Peralta mine” in the Superstitions was in 1895, by writer Pierpont C. Bicknell.
context_section_description: The Peralta Stones are a set of engraved stones. Some people believe they indicate the location of the famed Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, in Arizona, United States. The Dutchman was a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz.
  The stones are named for the Peralta family, said to be an old and powerful Mexican family. Peralta is a common Hispanic surname. Some people named Peralta owned a cattle ranch that included what is now Oakland, California at the time of the Mexican–American War. Pedro de Peralta was the governor of the Spanish territory in New Mexico, and picked the site for Santa Fe. James Reavis popularized the idea of a rich Peralta family in Arizona in 1882, when he tried to assert the phony Peralta Spanish land grant, which included a huge swath of Arizona and New Mexico, including the Superstition Mountains; Reavis' forged Peralta genealogy was exposed, and he served a prison sentence for fraud. According to current legend, but not supported by the historical record, some Peraltas mined in the Superstition Mountains. The first written reference to a “Peralta mine” in the Superstitions was in 1895, by writer Pierpont C. Bicknell.
caption: Front Back of the Peralta Stones
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