The Story
On March 14, 1887, brothers Louis and Ivan Thoen were gathering sandstone at the base of Lookout Mountain when Louis found an inscribed slab. The cursive inscription claims to be the last testament of prospector Ezra Kind, one of seven men who found gold in 1834 and were then killed by Native Americans — Kind the lone survivor. Its authenticity is genuinely unresolved: Louis Thoen was a trained stonemason (raising hoax suspicions), yet a 1950s investigation matched several names on the stone to real people who vanished heading west around 1830. The original is displayed at the Adams Museum in Deadwood; a replica and marker stand at the Spearfish discovery site.
Surprising Facts
→ If authentic, its claimed 1834 date would predate the official 1874 gold discovery by 40 years.
→ The man who found it was a trained stonemason — exactly the skill needed to fake it.
→ The original stone isn't in Spearfish — it's on display at the Adams Museum in Deadwood.