The Lost Lemon Mine S01E14

This is Unsolved Mysteries of the World, Season One, Episode 14, The Lost Lemon Mine

The legend of the Lost Lemon Mine is one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the Canadian Rockies with adventure, murder, madness, ghosts and a curse at the heart of the story.

The tale has many versions but we will stick to the most plausible one that begins in 1870 in Tobacco Plains Montana where a group of prospectors hearing that there could be gold in the rocky mountains of what the British were calling the Northwest Territories and present day province of Alberta in Canada.

Two men from the group, Frank Lemon and his partner, a man known as “Blackjack”in the modern telling of the story, or Dancing Bill in previous accounts, set out on a route of their own to the Highwood Range. As they passed through the valley near The Highwood River they noticed outcroppings of minerals that would indicate that just below them were most likely veins of gold.

Not wanting to share the discovery with the others, the two men made quick work and located a small vein and took samples from the rock. They would need some samples to take back to an assayer to determine the quality and also to convince wealthier individuals to bankroll the mining effort.

Once they had collected a sufficient number of ore samples, the pair set up camp for the night. They planned to begin heading back to Montana early the next morning.

Sometime during the night, Frank Lemon, convinced that Blackjack was going to cut him loose from the claim, took a pick-axe and drove it into Blackjack as he slept killing him in after several violent swings.

But Blackjack remained. Frank Lemon stumbled backwards and stayed close to the fire all night as the vision of Blackjack haunted him. Frank Lemon later stated that glowing eyes watched him from the darkness and the translucent form of Blackjack was haunting him throughout the night and into the next day. Frightened, he set off for Tobacco Plains and confessed his evil deed to a priest.

The Priest indicated that perhaps the only solution to stop the haunting was to give Blackjack a proper burial and a man named John McDougall was sent north to find and bury Blackjack’s corpse.

After following Lemon's directions, he found the corpse and buried him in a shallow grave covered with stones. Upon returning to Tobacco Plains, he learned that the burial did nothing to stop the tormenting of Lemon. The Priest indicated that not only did Jack Lemon appear insane, but he was at times possessed by some sort of evil spirit, perhaps one that previously convinced him to carry out the murder itself.

But insane or not, possessed by evil spirits or not, the lure of gold was too strong and a group of men encouraged Jack Lemon to accompany them back to the area to find the lost gold. At first, Lemon seemed almost normal, but as he drew closer to the area where he murdered Blackjack he started going insane and when he reached the area he was totally uncontrollable. One man subdued Lemon, and rode back to Tobacco Plains with Lemon bound to a horse. Once in Tobacco Plains he seemed less frequently bothered by the spirit of Blackjack and what other evils bothered him. He decided to travel to Texas to live with his brother, but years later, the ghost of Blackjack followed him there and he was forever tormented by the haunting.

The men who were looking for Lemon's lost gold were unsuccessful. Several fell ill, while others gave up early when no sign of gold, or indications at least, that gold may be present were noted. The entire expedition was a bust.

McDougall, the trapper who had buried Blackjack a year previous was hired to lead a party of prospectors back to the site to find the gold. On his way to meet the group he stopped in Fort Kipp, Montana. He would never leave this place; he ended up drinking himself to death taking the location of the mine with him to his grave.

Lafayette French, the one who funded the original expedition went searching on his own for the mine. He searched in vain for close to 30 years with the help of the Blackfoot tribe. On a few of his expeditions, he lost some of his men to unknown sicknesses.

Over the course of many years many prospectors tried to relocate the lost gold but all came up empty handed or ended in disaster – forest fires, death, illness and even another prospector coming down with the same type of possession noted in Lemon.

Upon returning from his last expedition, he wrote a cryptic letter to a friend that stated he had found the location and would explain everything when he had the opportunity. After mailing the letter he made camp in an old log cabin close to the town of High River. Mysteriously that night his cabin was burned to the ground, with French inside. The location of the mine, once again, gone.

Rumours swirled t...