With six-guns blazing, a band of daring robbers shot their way out of the First National Bank in Harrison, Arkansas, in the spring of 1880, and they escaped with an estimated $5000 in large canvas bags.
The four outlaws raced west along the old stagecoach road, which wound its way past the tiny settlement of Cappa, over Gaither Mountain, and on through the town of Batavia. With a sheriff’s posse in hot pursuit, the gang continued west toward the relay station called Midway House, approximately halfway between the present towns of Alpena and Green Forest.
As the posse began to close the distance between them, the gang halted about half a mile east of Midway House. There they are believed to have buried the loot somewhere near a clay bank on the south side of the road.
Shortly afterward, the posse overtook them. In the ensuing gun battle, all four of the outlaws were killed. One lived just long enough to indicate where the loot was buried, but, while a search was made, it was never found.
Today, the ruins of Midway House are still standing, and the old wagon road is still dimly evident a few yards to the south. A bank of clay does exist between a quarter of a mile and a half-mile to the east of the ruins, on the south side of the old road. The site is in Boone County, about a mile south of Highway 65.
Montgomery County is located about 30 miles west of Hot Springs. In the southwestern corner of the county flows the Little Missouri River, and somewhere near Missouri Falls there is buried a wash-pot which is believed to contain $60,000 in gold, at yesteryear’s prices. It was originally one of two wash-pots that were buried containing gold, it is stated. The other wash-pot held $100,000 in gold and was buried in a different spot.
Along about 1900, a man named Arthur C. White came to Montgomery County with a waybill to the treasure. This was the first time residents were aware of its existence. White said there were two caches and gave the above value for each. He did not say how they had come to be buried there.
Following directions given on his waybill, White succeeded in recovering the wash-pot that held $100,000 in gold, but he was unable to unearth the remaining pot and left without it. He never came back. The chances are that it is still there, awaiting some lucky finder.