Cerbat Range, Arizona
In 1873 there stood a stage station in the foothills of the Cerbat Mountains near Kingman, Arizona. Canyon Station, as it was called, was near the mouth of a narrow canyon that led to a road that twisted up the Cerbat Mountains before descending to Mineral Park.
Legend has it that in October of 1873, a man named Macallum, or perhaps it was McAllen, heard that the government was going to be shipping some $72,000 in gold coins from Prescott to Fort Mohave. Near Canyon Station, Macallum, along with an unknown partner, stopped the stagecoach and relieved it of its strongbox before sending it on its way.
A posse was immediately dispatched. Anticipating this, the two bandits buried the heavy strongbox to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers. However, the posse soon caught up with the pair, and when a gunfight ensued, Macallum’s partner was shot and killed in the melee.
Macallum was arrested, convicted, and sent to the Yuma Territorial Prison. Though questioned at length, the desperado refused to reveal the location of the buried loot.
Yuma, Arizona old Territorial Prison
However, while Macallum was serving his sentence, he became very ill and, upon his death bed, relayed the story to another inmate. When the prisoner was released, he wasted no time in following up with the lead and headed to Canyon Station.
At that time, a man named Andy Goodwill lived in the Canyon Station building. Having no objections to the former prisoner’s search of the buried gold, the man spent several days in and around the area, diligently searching for a marker that Macallum had described to him. But as hard as he looked, he just couldn’t find the marker. Perhaps this was because Mr. Goodwill had cultivated an orchard and a large garden on the premises. Finally, the discouraged man gave up his extensive search and left the area.
Several years later a woman by the name of Nelle Clack would tell a story of how she believed that the bandits had used a cave in Clacks Canyon to hide out. The cave, formed by two large boulders, would have been an ideal hiding place to observe the movements going on at Canyon Station. It was there that Nelle had found personal belongings left by someone who had obviously lived in the cave for a period of time.
Today, all that is left of Canyon Station is a few crumbling foundations at the end of a weed-choked road. The loot from the stagecoach robbery was never recovered.
© Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2022.
Also See:
Arizona – the Grand Canyon State