[1] There are a number of legends from former Spanish colonies around the world that refer to a Lost Padre Mine or by names similar to this.

[1] Priests from the Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church are thought to have established a number of secret mines along the San Andreas Fault zone during the period of Spanish and later Mexican rule of California.

By the time California was admitted as the thirty-first State of the Union in 1850, these early mines had effectively disappeared casting doubt that they had ever existed.

[1] Some believe priests from the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church were exploiting mineral wealth in pre-colonial California before 1768.

[3] On August 24, 1790, Commandante Felipe de Goycochea dispatched nine soldiers headed by Sergeant Jose Ignacio Olivera to search for a neophyte named Domingo who had run away from Mission San Buenaventura.

[4] A pioneering, fur trapper and trader from Tennessee named Ewing Young (1799–1841) found physical evidence of early mining activity in southern California in the form of abandoned smelter ovens.

It was documented by the renowned geologist and mineralogist William Phipps Blake who made a thorough investigation of the site on September 21, 1853, at a place his Indian guide called "Campo de los Americanos".

[9] An elderly Native American named José el Venadero knew the location of the mines that supplied the old smelters.

Like most Native Americans, Capena believed in the padres' curse that would cost him his life if he revealed the secret location of the mines.

Capena, now over eighty years of age, felt he was near the end of his life and had little to lose by revealing the location of the Franciscan mine.

[6] In April/May 1884, Pico himself led an expedition to this silver mine on behalf of an Italian, Prospero Calli from Bakersfield who financed the venture.

[7] It was a secret mining-operation and most of the details that have survived come from Native Americans who had worked at the mine or had visited the site after it was closed.