Digital Alabama (/series/alabama-treasure-legends)
Some sites listed here may have prohibitions against prospecting. Always seek permission from property owners and obtain any necessary permits prior to treasure hunting, panning, dredging, or metal detecting.
Dauphin Island legend says in 1710 or 1711, a treasure-seeking Jamaican pirate ship invaded Dauphin Island. An alleged jeweled gold cross on the island’s Catholic church was to be their prize. The legend continues to say the priest of the church realizing the pirates would come for the cross, grabbed it and dived into a nearby well, the gold cross clutched in his arms. Neither was seen again.
Confederate gold refers to hidden caches of gold lost after the American Civil War. Millions of dollars’ worth of gold was lost or unaccounted for after the war.
French Treasure Ship Yet To Be Found
In September 1724, a French merchant ship was located off the coast of present-day Alabama near present-day Dauphin Island. The vessel was “La Bellone.” In her hold was stored a cargo of beaver skins, deer hides, tobacco, indigo and coins and bullion valued at 40,000 crowns. She was on her way to Dauphin Island to collect the yearly production of goods by the French colonials in Louisiana, and transport them to France. While trying to enter Pelican Bay, the Bellone ran aground.
Local historians say they have heard tales about treasures hidden in flooded caves and other areas of the Shoals.
Louina Alabama was settled by the Indians, pushed to Alabama by the white settlers from the overcrowded east in the 1830s. Louina’s trading post quickly became the metropolis of its day with the area producing quantities of gold. Today Louina is a ghost town.
According to tradition and folklore, the Louina area coughed up gold and silver.
Won’t no damn Yankees ever find that gold money!
Doublehead (1744–1807) or Incalatanga (Tal-tsu’tsa in Cherokee), was one of the most feared warriors of the Cherokee during the Cherokee–American wars.
There is a legend in south Alabama, associated with the spirit of a man known as, “Railroad Bill”. This story, from slave cultures, during the post-Civil War era, during the reconstruction of the South, documents a “Robin Hood” type character who stole from food trains and sold the items to poor, rural southern families for less than they could buy them in general stores.
One of Alabama’s most famous lost gold stories is the Yuchi Gold of Paint Rock Valley.
Legend says that somewhere just southeast of Huntsville, Alabama there is a fortune in gold hidden in a cave. According to the legend, the cave has gold ingots stacked within. This Alabama Treasure Legend speculates that the gold came from Spanish soldiers who were killed near Tuscaloosa Alabama by the Yuchi tribe around 1699.
Alabama treasure map marks the approximate location of the treasures legends researched. Keep in mind that most, if not all, of these legends and tales of burried treasure are nothing more than legend without any hard evidence whatsoever.
Research continues on an incident that allegedly occured in Marion County Alabama. While reviewing archives at the Library Of Congress, this interesting article was found which was printed in “The Hickman Courier” in Hickman Kentucky on August 28, 1885. The article is a reprint of an article printed in the “Pulaski Citizen,” a newspaper in Pulaski Tennessee. The article(s) tell of the finding of “The Long Lost Ark of the Covenant” in Marion County Alabama. Evidently the article was republished around the country.