Forest fenn passes on

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... nn-rockies

forrest Fenn, an eccentric millionaire, liked to engage with those seeking his hoard but left more questions than answers

by Rachel Mabe in Santa Fe

Wed 16 Sep 2020 10.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 18 Sep 2020 09.37 BST

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In 2010, a millionaire called Forrest Fenn self-published a memoir containing clues to a treasure hunt in the Rocky Mountains. Fenn had buried a chest full of items from his antiquities collection – including jewelry, jade carvings and plenty of gold coins deemed worth between $1m and $3m – hoping to give people the Indiana Jones type of adventure that had defined his life.

He had conceived of the hunt, he said, “for every redneck out there with a pickup truck, six kids, [who has] just lost his job, his wife, and lacks adventure.” To see people scrambling to find it gave him great satisfaction.


Fenn died of natural causes last Monday at the age of 90. In an email sent to the Guardian just days before his death – likely his last correspondence with a news organization – he wrote that he thought more than 500,000 people looked for the treasure. While it is impossible to verify this number, it is undeniable that many hunters did so obsessively and sometimes recklessly. Five have died in the process, but Fenn steadfastly refused to call the treasure hunt off. “If someone drowns in the swimming pool,” he told a New York Times reporter in 2017, “we shouldn’t drain the pool, we should teach people to swim.”