Did a soldier from the 5th Cavalry under General George Crook, kill a miner and steal, then hide, his $3,000 of gold dust near here? Was the soldier later killed, without disclosing whether he did the crime and where he might have hidden the loot?
The story goes that during the fall of 1878, an old miner named Norman McGully drifted into Sheridan, South Dakota. McGully was strictly a loner and did not frequent the handy gambling saloons or casinos. It didn’t take McGully long to amass a small fortune in gold dust and nuggets. One day he set out on foot for Rapid City, where he planned to deposit his gold in a more secure place.
About halfway there, McGully was attacked by a drunken soldier from a nearby army camp and killed. The soldier hurridly buried the dead miners gold and returned to camp, content with the knowledge that when he was discharged he would be a very wealthy man. On arriving at the post, still in a drunken stupor, the soldier told a buddy what he had done.
The buddy immediately informed superior officers and subsequently the murderer was imprisoned at Fort Benton, Montana. He was put to work in the prisons sawmill. One day a fellow inmate began chiding the soldier about killing the old crippled miner. The enraged soldier grabbed the man and threw him in a whirring circular saw.
Three days later, several of the dead mans friends hanged the luckless, murdering soldier from the prison rafters.
The gold would have been buried somewhere along the north side of Spring Creek. McGully was killed about halfway between present-day Sheridan Lake and the town of Rapid City. As far as is known, the cache is where McGully’s murderer, buried it.
This is not the location of the crime or the location where the loot is hidden but is as good a place as any to stop your ride to ponder the Gold Dust treasurer.
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