Highways Paved With Gold

Duane's take

Well, the marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Since time immemorial, man has searched for a land where the streets were paved with gold. As early as the sixteenth century, he was right here in Texas, lured by Indian reports of Seven Cities of Gold.

He never found them. But those stories never died either — legends of untold riches still spun by some Texans to this day. Now here's where it gets interesting.

A lot of those tall tales, it turns out, are more fact than fiction. Because both this stretch of U.S. Highway 81 and a portion of adjacent U.S.

Highway 287 — right here in Montague County — are actually paved with gold. The story began in 1936, when the Texas Highway Department was paving those two highways. They needed sand for the concrete, so they pulled it from a nearby pit that had been opened three years earlier.

And when those grains hit the mix, they glistened with such intensity that somebody thought a closer look seemed prudent. A small supply was packed up and sent to a Fort Worth laboratory for assay. Back came the report: the sand contained gold.

Now, you can imagine what that news did to the owner of that pit. He went into a feverish search for the mother lode. Sounding after sounding, extensive work across the land — and the top assays came back at no more than fifty-four cents per ton of ore.

Then came the second piece of bad news: the gold wasn't free. It was deeply embedded in the sand itself, not the kind you could just shake loose and pocket. Disheartened, the owner settled back into routine sand production.

But here's the thing about a story that starts with gold — it doesn't end quietly. From that pit, when all was said and done, eventually came two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold. All of it part of the sand.

All of it going somewhere. It has been reckoned that as much as thirty-one thousand dollars is distributed along thirty-nine miles of roadway alone. Some twenty-five thousand in U.S.

Highway 81, and six thousand in U.S. Highway 287. The remainder went into other construction across the region — buildings, concrete work, structures that still stand.

So those conquistadors who rode through Texas chasing the Seven Cities of Gold? They were looking in the right place. Just asking the wrong question.

The golden cities were here all along — pressed flat, poured in concrete, and driven over every single day by people who never once thought to look down.

What the marker says

From the immemorial man has searched for a land where streets were paved with gold. As early as the 16th Century he was in Texas, lured by Indian reports of "Seven Cities of Gold." They never were found. But they provided the basis for legends of untold riches--stories still spun by some Texans. Surprisingly, perhaps, many of the "tall tales" are more fact than fiction. For instance, both this section of U.S. Highway 81 and a portion of adjacent U.S. Highway 287 are actually paved with gold! The story began in 1936 when the Texas Highway Department was paving the two highways here in Montague County. Sand for the concrete was taken from a nearby pit, opened three years earlier. The grains glistened with such intensity as they were mixed that a closer examination seemed prudent. So a small supply was sent to a Fort Worth laboratory for assay. Back came the report: the sand contained gold. The news sent the owner of the pit in feverish search of the mother lode. But in vain. Top assays on his extensive "soundings" came to no more than 54 cents per ton of ore. His ardor was cooled further when he learned the gold was not free but deeply imbedded in the sand. Disheartened, he settled back into routine sand production. From his pit, however, eventually came $250,000 in gold--all part of the sand. It has been reckoned that as much as $31,000 is distributed along 39 miles of roadway. Some $25,000 in U.S. Highway 81 and $6,000 in U.S. Highway 287. The remainder has gone into other construction in the region, including numerous buildings in which concrete has been used. So it is that today's motorist has discovered the highways paved with gold and the "golden" cities which his predecessors sought in vain. (1963)