Artisan Jewelers host Treasure Hunt

by Sally Jack
Contributing writer
Excitement filled the air on the morning of Friday, July 19, 2024 as between 120 and 150 people gathered at Artisan Jewelers to receive their first clue to a treasure hunt for a real treasure – a diamond worth $1,000!
Stormy Whipple found the diamond, but at the outset, no one knew who would win the hunt, and every participant was in the running as they raced against the clock and each other following clues, solving riddles, and collecting pieces of the treasure map from eight local businesses:
The Merc True Value, Unique Creations, San Juan County Library-Monticello, the Overbite, Thatzza Pizza, Doug’s Barbecue, Miriam Peterson’s ‘Life Mission School’ and The Hideout golf course.
Thirty minutes later, Stormy, Ashton, and Ayslee Whipple were the first to triumphantly return to Artisan Jewelers with their completed map, where they received another treasure map with the final clues about where to find the diamond, which weighed in at almost half a carat.
The second map took them up the mountain road, past Monticello Lake, to the ruins of an old “prospector’s fort” and there they found the valuable treasure hidden under a rock near the crumbling chimney of the burned down cabin.
The next treasure hunters began returning to the jewelry store eight minutes after the Whipple trio, and continued to trickle in for a few hours after that; they also received a second map which led them to a treasure chest hidden in the old log church at Pioneer Park where each participant young and old got to pick a prize. Prizes in the treasure chest included metal pirate coins, imitation jewels, candy bracelets, ring pops, and other fun trinkets to reward their efforts.
A mother who went on the hunt with her kids said, “We started out okay, but we couldn’t keep up with the other treasure hunters. Before long we were lagging way behind. But it was still so much fun to go on the hunt, and the kids were thrilled with the treasures they got to choose and keep.”
Artisan Jewelers hosted the treasure hunt as part of the Pioneer Days celebration.
This was the third such treasure hunt created by professional jeweler Tyler Hall, owner of the jewelry store.
“The hardest part of hosting a hunt like this,” says Tyler, “is all of the work involved in advertising, and coordinating the clues and riddles with each business, and making sure that the participating businesses get the support and the advertising they deserve.”
“And the best part,” Tyler adds with a big grin, “is seeing the smiles on people’s faces. After all, it’s not every day you get to go on a real treasure hunt.”
• • • • •
This is the Tale of the Diamond that Tyler Hall shared with Stormy Whipple and other delighted treasure hunters seeking for the thousand dollar diamond:
“The Legend of the Diamond in the Old Prospector Fort”
As imagined and written by Tyler Hall
April 8th 1901
I’m not sure that I’ll live long now that the infection has spread.
I’ll be dead by morning.
I guess it’s time now to let my dark secret free. May God forgive me.
I was 26 and my partner Joe was 27. We were prospecting for gold in the bottom of the San Juan River. It took us a week to cut the trail down the cliff face to the bottom.
Week after week we panned and sleuthed, and panned and sleuthed. We found a little color, but not much. Then one day I pulled a shiny white pebble out of the bottom of my pan. It looked different than the rest and I decided to get it checked out. I took it to Monticello to the Jeweler, and he told me it was a diamond.
Oh how thrilled I was!
We had hit it big! After months of work it was finally going to pay off.
Joe and I shifted our focus from gold to diamonds, washing all the gravel over a grease pan to see if any of the stones would stick, because that’s what diamonds do. We spent months but never found another diamond.
We were broke, so we went into town, dropped by the store and saw Mary Beth. I was mighty fond of Mary, but I never had the guts to ask her out.
She was as beautiful as a morning sunrise, and I thought an awful lot of her.
We shifted back to panning for gold until we went broke.
One day I checked my rucksack and my diamond was gone!
Somehow it was lost or stolen but it wasn’t in that grey sock where I kept it tucked away.
Well, Joe and I decided to give up mining and go work on the cattle farms instead. We both got a job with a local rancher and started living life on the range.
One September evening Joe showed up on my doorstep with Mary Beth on his arm.
I was shocked and hurt that my friend would steal her away from me, but it was my own dad gum fault.
I should have been a man and asked her out, and I didn’t.
Months passed and one dark night Mary Beth and Joe showed up again on my doorstep.
They told me they were engaged. I suppressed the anger and hurt—and then I saw it!
MY DIAMOND WAS ON HER FINGER!
I knew it was mine. I would recognize it anywhere!
JOE HAD STOLEN MY DIAMOND AND MY MARY!
I pointed it out, and Joe took it off her finger and tried showing me that it wasn’t my diamond.
The liar, I knew it when I saw it.
In a blind rage I grabbed my pick axe.
Joe dropped the ring in his pocket and Joe and Mary ran out and jumped on their horses with me close on their heels.
Mary’s horse slipped and fell. The critter rolled over her and Joe stopped for a second, saw me and my rage, and just kept on riding.
It was a long time until I ever saw him again. Mary died in my arms. It broke my heart. I got her back to her family and we buried her the next day.
Twelve years later I was in the Blue Goose Saloon in Monticello Utah, and who was sitting at that counter but my old partner, that cowardly traitor Joe.
I pulled my gun on him and marched him right out of there. I demanded to get my diamond back. He told me it was in his cabin up on the Blue Mountain. At gunpoint I forced him to take me there.
He handed me the ring, and I shot him!
I buried him under his own cabin and I hid my diamond under a rock on his mantle, and burned his cabin to the ground.
I never went back for it. I couldn’t look at that stone without seeing Mary Beth dying in my arms!
To the poor unfortunate soul that wants to recover my diamond:
Jump on your horse and follow these instructions:
1. Start at the edge of 200 S and Main in Monticello UT. Set your horse’s odometer to 0.
2. Travel west following 200 South out of town and up the mountain.
3. Follow the Asphalt trail past Dalton springs past the creek until it comes to Monticello Lake. Pass the lake.
4. When your horse’s odometer says 8.4 miles from Monticello, take a right onto County Road 103. It’s a dirt road.
5. When you come to a cross street go straight through.
6. Continue until your horse’s odometer says 9.6 miles from Monticello once again.
7. There will be a road on your right that has a sign that says 5111.
8. Get off your horse and start walking.
9. You’ll pass the old coral at about 600 paces as a man walks.
10. The cabin is at 760 paces.
May the diamond bring you more than the heartache it brought me!