Explore the ancient Lost City in the Catalinas with Prsopector Flint Carter

Kino came to the Americas in support of his Breve Relación of May 3, 1698. The royal cédula, issued by the King of Spain, was used to convert the natives and promise that they would not be forced to work in the mines if they converted to Christianity.

"that all the tribes of heathen Indians which may be found in the district and jurisdiction comprised in the government of each audiencia and government district,... promising in my name to all new converts that during the first twenty years of their reduction they will not be required to give tribute or to serve on estates or in mines, since this is one of the reasons why they refuse to be converted." 1

As Kino made this way up through present-day Arizona, called Pimeria Alta, in 1702, he described in his diaries about

"certain news of the treasure and rich mines which have just been discovered near here at Quisuani, Aygame, San Cosme, etc., and very near to the new conversion or mission of San Francisco Xavier of the Pimas Cocomacaques of Pimeria Baxa." 2

No documentation implicates either Kino or any Jesuits missionaries, but Kino's friendship with Lt. Juan Bautista de Escalante, the local military governor of Sonora, helped Kino round up renegade natives who were attacking the Spanish and Mexican settlers.

Some of the legends about the Iron Door Mine have referred to the mine as the Lost Escalante Mine. 3

In one of Kino's letters to Escalante, he requests Escalante's assistance to route out rebellious Apache Indians:

"...after having marched some days we attacked a rancheria of Apaches, where seventeen of the enemy were killed. We captured sixteen persons, of whom the Pimas are taking twelve and have sold us four, because I told them that whatever was captured should belong to the captor, in order to rouse in them a stronger desire to display valor. And such was the case, for they, being many, captured fourteen, and we two. This has been of great importance as a means of showing the opponents of this new nation the falsehood and the error in which they have been, unless it be that partisanship closes the eyes of their reason."

"Manje (Luz de Tierra Incógnita, libro ii, 66) states that it was Alférez Juan de Escalante, who, with Manje and twenty soldiers, went to certify to the deaths. He states that for seven leagues they followed the battle-march, counting sixty dead, and that it was reported that one hundred and sixty-eight died of poisoned arrows. He says nothing of Kino's part in spreading the news nor of his going to count the dead. Jironza tells us that he sent Escalante with twenty-five men to view the signs of the victory and to enlist the Pimas to pursue the enemy. The Pimas made excuses, and he did not urge them, since there were "recent allies" (letter of May 16, 1698). Kino took advantage of the victory above recounted to appeal for ten or twelve new missionaries. Indeed, this was the purpose for which the Breve Relación was written." 4

The mine was said to be active until the Jesuits were expelled in 1767.

It wasn't until 1880 that the lost pueblo, called The Nine Mile City, was rediscovered.

An account by two prospectors described an exploration into the Catalina mountains for the express purpose to find the Nueva Mia Ciudad and the mine with the iron door. 5

Over ten years later, in article in the February 17, 1891 edition of the Tombstone Prospector reported:

"Early in the present decade a prominent journalist of this city discovered in a "rugged and precipitous defile" of the Santa Catalinas the ruins of a long lost pueblo, adjacent to which were numerous shafts that had been sunk in ages past, for in one of them was a giant sahuara fully 70 feet high, only a small portion of which appeared above the surface." 6