Francene Rainey/Contributing Writer
About 25-30 members of the East Texas Treasure Hunters Association gathered in Jefferson under the Diamond Don RV Park Pavilion to have some coffee, furnished by “The Hive”, as they braved the very wet rainy conditions on Saturday April 20. Nothing would keep them from the treasure.
Local members, Tom Moss and Dave Durocher, “seeded” a large area of the pasture at the RV Park with lots of goodies for the club’s Spring Silver Hunt. They dug deep into the ground to bury all kinds of silver coins and trinkets.
The hunters were out for several hours in the rain and did come back with lots of treasure. Lightening drove them off the field late morning, back to cover of the pavilion and more hot coffee.
In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Diamond Don Rainey promoted the Charles Garret Memorial Hunt. That group seeded all of the RV Park and those trinkets and coins are still being found today. There are also indigenous artifacts from the 1800’s left by the railroad repair yard and old sawmill located on the RV Park property. Tom Moss says the main depot for the Northwest Railroad, a narrow gauge train, was located there.
The Association has over 40 members in the Ark-La-Tex area. Member Ken Mathews found a rare 1960 silver dime. They also found saloon tokens from many years ago. Another member found a belt buckle with the Masonic symbol on it; and they found several sawmill tokens.
Greg Murphy says he found some silver half dollars and some foreign silver coins.
Theresa Hall, Woman Hunter of the Year, had the most skill and brought home all kinds of unique metal pieces. She claimed top spot for “most found”.
These were very hard-core dedicated hunters to brave the weather to find the treasure.