THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE 15lost everything, he told me. One day about
four years ago, they found an old portrait at
a yard sale that reminded them of Jesse
and Frank James. An appraiser cast doubt
on it being a photo of the brothers, so
Somers started researching to try to au-
thenticate the portrait himself, in order to
sell it. “He was going to prove that Jesse
James had been in Ohio,” Bowser told me.
“That’s what started this whole thing.”
Bowser and one of her brothers co-
owned about two dozen acres that includ-
ed the forest on the steep hill overlooking
the creek — the same creek Somers had
visited as a boy. Any treasure found could
be claimed by them. Local lore held that
there had been a gold mine in the area a
long time ago, and Somers began to won-
der if the rumors of a gold mine and the
rumors of outlaw gold were conflations of
the same story. One day he announced to
Bowser, “I’m going to dig Jesse James’s
gold bars out of the side of your hill.”
He explored the forest, looking for adismiss it outright. You can chuckle at it. Or you can say, ‘Hmmm,
what if there’s something rather profound here?’ And gold bars are
a touchstone for it all.” Finding gold in Ohio would be a
vindication, a demonstration that his theories are correct and that
our understanding of history must be adjusted.
“It’s become my legacy, it’s my life’s work,” he says. “You can
kick me in the shins a million times: ‘Warren, pull up a damn gold
bar and prove it.’ I’m as close as you possibly can be.”
Brad Richards, 52, the former history teacher from Michigan,
told me that beyond recouping his expenses for two trips to Ohio,
the gold means less than the possible contribution to history.
“How many untold stories are out there?” he says. “It would be
incredibly exciting to be a part of discovering and illuminating
hidden history.” He adds that he’s the “skeptical one.” “I’m not big
on looking at grainy video footage and being 100 percent certain
on anything. ... I’ve got to see it to believe it.”
Chad Somers, 43, the former bull rider, was raised in a speck of
a rural crossroads called Purity, near the treasure site. When he
was about 10, a neighbor his grandfather did some work for told
the boy there was a rumor that James had buried gold down by a
creek where the boy was headed to play. Somers vowed to find it.
After his bull-riding days in his 20s, he fell on hard times. He
and his girlfriend, Hope Bowser, lived in a mobile-home park and
paid the rent by doing maintenance, until they were evicted and
Clockwise from left:
The treasure hunters
clear a path to the dig
site. Hope Bowser,
who co-owns the
property with a
brother, hugs her
granddaughter. A
carving on a tree of
an alleged soldier or
outlaw supposedly
indicates the area
where the gold is
buried.