It all began in the mid-1800s when Ute chief Walkara bagged up sixty pounds of raw gold for Mormon bishop Isaac Morley. He took it to Brigham Young, who later assigned Thomas Rhoades-under a blood oath of secrecy-to fetch more of the sacred metal for minting coins and decorating temples.

Aztec gold still awaits discovery.

The gold came from the sacred Ute mines in the Uintah Mountains that were once worked by the Aztecs. In 1520 the Aztecs told Hernando Cortez that their vast hoards of gold came from seven mines far to the north-the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola-leading to Spanish exploration throughout the Uintah Mountains. But the Spaniards had little luck, and the treasure still awaits.

Discover within these pages:

• How modern technology has combined with history and legend to pinpoint the location-within a few square miles-of the Mother Lode of all gold deposits.
• The reason Mel Fisher, discoverer of lost Spanish treasure in the Caribbean, came to the Uintah Mountains just before his untimely death.
• The government's decision in the early 1900s to reduce the size of the Ute Indian Reservation to make new areas available for mining when F.W.C. Hathenbruck and Caleb Rhoades promised to use mining proceeds to pay off the national debt.
• The secret endeavors of Jesse Knight and Reed Smoot to claim the gold mines in the Uintahs for themselves.
• The recent sham burial of Ute chief Black Hawk in Spring Lake, Utah, to cover up the secret transfer of his bones to one of the tribe's sacred mines.
• Never-before-published maps and detailed letters from those who have been to the mines.