'GOLD FEVER' TAMED BY DCNR

Gold fever still has a grip on a trio of men who want to dig into state forest land near the Elk/Cameron County border.

However, with state officials taking a "show us the evidence" stance, there's no sign that the impasse will end any time soon.

The three owners of Finders Keepers Inc. from Clearfield County think they've found the site where a wagon train full of gold was buried in 1863.

According to local legend, the wagon and the soldier guarding it made it as far as St. Marys from Wheeling, W.Va., in 1863. One account contends that the wagon was carrying 52 bars of gold, each weighing 50 pounds.

It makes for an intriguing story, but it's a tale that troubles the Pa. Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources on several counts.

First of all, DCNR officials dispute the contention that items uncovered from the Dent's Run area have any connection with a lost gold shipment. Additionally, they maintain that even if Finders Keepers located valuables buried on state land, the speculators would not own the treasure.

Lastly, DCNR wants Finders Keepers to post a bond to cover clean-up expenses from excavation work the company proposes to conduct at the site.

"We need to see proof," said District Forester Jeanne Wambaugh from the Emporium office. "If we let everyone dig on state land where they wanted, the whole state forest would be dug up."

Dennis Parada of Finders Keepers claims the company has already proven its case by showing DCNR officials Civil War-era artifacts uncovered at the site. He also said that detectors have verified there is gold deeply buried at the site, but he cannot prove it without a major excavation.

"They (DCNR) say that if we can show them the gold, then they will look into it," Parada said. "They also stated that anyone who digs on state land and removes artifacts would go to jail and lose any rights to a reward. So we offered to pay all costs to dig and they said no."

"We had eight hits on iron and two on gold," he added. "If the gold bars were buried in iron boxes and they were now rusted open, this would explain the readings."

Parada also claims to have other confidential information that proves the gold is there.

Wambaugh said the bonding requirements were what dissuaded Parada's company from proceeding.

"He wanted to do groundpenetrating radar, where you put rebar in the ground and pull it back out," she pointed out. "In order to do that, he would have to pay a bond, and he refused to do that."

State Representative Dan Surra of Kersey said Finders Keepers could move forward with its prospecting if the company would play by the state's rules.

"You have to follow certain requirements and he doesn't want to do that," Surra said. "In my opinion, it was not a big requirement to come up with a bond. I thought it was a workable solution."

Parada faces one other highplaced skeptic, Ted Borawski, who heads the Forestry Bureau's minerals division.

"There exists no credible evidence, either from the materials excavated from the site or from stories longcirculated, to support any conclusions that a lost federal gold bullion shipment was ever located on state forest lands in the vicinity of Dents Run," Borawski said.

Of all the obstacles he believes the state has put in his way, Parada is especially disturbed by the ownership issues.

DCNR officials have declared that any gold that's found buried is either the property of the state or, if it's determined to be a federal shipment, it could belong to the federal government.

"We believe we should have some right to the find," Parada noted. "But, until we can dig it up, no one is going to get anything."