For Decades, Civil War Buffs Have Looked for Missing Gold. They May Be Close.

A Union shipment of gold worth $54 million was supposedly lost in Pennsylvania in 1863.

civil war
The rumored lost gold could be worth around $52 million today. (Akos Stiller/Bloomberg)
Getty Images/Bloomberg Creative Photos

According to a decades-old legend, during the Civil War, a Union shipment of gold was lost in Pennsylvania. Civil War buffs and assorted fortune seekers have combed the hills and forests of northwestern Pennsylvania searching for the Union wagon train, which, depending on which account you believe, was carrying up to 52 bars of gold weighing 50 pounds each. Besides a few vague historical artifacts and a lot of stories, the searches have come up empty. But last week, FBI agents and state officials were spotted digging up the snow-covered ground off Route 555 in Benezette Township, reports CNN. An FBI spokesperson wouldn’t say what the agency was doing there, but WJAC, a CNN-affiliate, says their cameras spotted the owners of Finders Keepers USA, a Pennsylvania-based lost treasure recovery service. The group has long been interested in the rumored Dents Run gold. In a post on the Finders Keepers site, founder Dennis Parada said he found a treasure map in the 1970s and searched the area with metal detectors until 2004. He was unsuccessful, but did come back with bullet shells, knives, animals traps, tin cans and more. However, the Dents Run site sits on state land, so it is illegal to dig or remove artifacts without permission.

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