Captain Ben Ingalls of the United States cavalry strained to hear sound from other members of his scouting party as he rode his horse slowly up a brushy hill near Mt. Stuart. He had accidentally become separated from the scouting party several hours before and now he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Cascade country was a formidable wilderness in the year 1872.
Captain Ingalls reached the top of the hill and found himself on a long, narrow ridge. He noticed in the canyon below three small lakes. He pulled his horse up sharply, and the animal tossed his head and champed the bit. Never before had Captain Ingalls seen lakes quite like these. Two lakes were roughly round in shape with dark water. But the middle lake was shaped in a crescent and shimmering green in color. The lakes were all connected by a narrow stream.
He found a steep trail leading to the floor of the canyon. The horse trotted impatiently down the trail, noisily crunching the rocks under its hoofs.
As the captain approached the crescent shaped lake, his mouth dropped open and he gasped. Then he let out a low whistle, jumped off his horse, and ran to the edge of the lake. He stooped down, examining the beach. It was a beach of crumbling quartz rock studded thickly with glittering, virgin gold.
Captain Ben Ingalls stayed in the canyon about two days, sketching a map of the area so he would be sure to find his way back. He estimated that there were about 10 tons of gold in his view and that probably much more lay hidden in the immediate vicinity.
When Captain Ingalls left the canyon to find his troops, he carried with him several samples of the gold. He followed the creek which now bears his name. Hoping to recover it when he returned, he buried the map somewhere near the mouth of the creek.
Captain Ingalls bedded down the first night several miles from the canyon. Shrill screams from his horse awakened him abruptly in the night. Then he felt the ground shake terribly under him. The whole earth seemed to erupt with rumbling noises. He could hear the crashing of boulders and splintering trees all around him. But Captain Ingalls remained untouched. He didn’t realize at the time that he was experiencing the great earthquake of 1872.
After Captain Ingalls rejoined his troops, he wrote to John Hansel, telling him about his discovery and sending him samples of gold. Ingalls asked Hansel to join him at the mouth of Ingalls Creek, but, before he could return, Ingalls was killed in a shooting accident.
Hansel carried on the search of gold alone. Although he and his family homesteaded a ranch for many years at to mouth of Ingalls Creek, Hansel never found the map of the gold. Apparently, the earthquake had shaken the cliffs around the three lakes and buried them deep beneath the earth. Many prospectors combed the area during the 1890’s but no one ever found a canyon and lakes even remotely resembling those described by Captain Ben Ingalls.
Is this truth or fiction? This story is taken from the book the Night the Mountain Fell & Other Stories of North Central Washington. What we do know of truth is Captain Ben Ingalls did indeed find gold. But it was in the 1850’s. He went on to fight in the civil war and come back to search for his gold. He was accidentally shot when going through some trees and a tree branch hit the rifle of the man on the horse behind him causing it to discharge. He lived for a couple of days. His map was to have been hid near where Ingalls Creek joined with Peshastin Creek. It is rumored to have been found and half of it at one time owned by a local lady. We do know there was about $1,700,000 of gold produced from Blewett and surrounding areas from the finding of the gold to 1910.
