This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:10] Susan Blackwell: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file.

[0:18] Laura Camien: Spark file to be something that I want to make or how I want to be.

[0:23] Susan Blackwell: I pump it in my spark style.

[0:26] Laura Camien: Spark.

[0:28] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark file.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Sparks File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people fear less, create more, and bring their creative visions to life.

[0:52] Laura Camien: If you're an OG member of the Sparkfile community, welcome back, Sparkler.

[0:57] Susan Blackwell: If you're joining us for the first time, welcome, friend. Know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:06] Laura Camien: You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a sparkfile?

[1:10] Susan Blackwell: A Sparkfile is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:16] Laura Camien: If you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or you want to be making stuff all the time, you know if you're not careful, your campfire of creativity can flicker out.

[1:27] Susan Blackwell: But do not despair, friend. We're collecting kindling in the form of fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity.

[1:37] Laura Camien: To light a fire under our collective asses to make things like, for instance, this very podcast.

[1:44] Susan Blackwell: Or a story filled with historical intrigue and leaps of faith.

[1:49] Laura Camien: This episode has historical intrigue written all over it.

[1:54] Susan Blackwell: Historical intrigue, did you say? Leaps of faith, did you say?

[1:59] Laura Camien: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our spark piles and exchange some sparks.

[2:03] Susan Blackwell: And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too.

[2:07] Laura Camien: That means we have more sparks than we can possibly use in this lifetime.

[2:11] Susan Blackwell: So if something lights you up, we beg you, we implore you, please take that thing and make something out of it.

[2:20] Laura Camien: Without further ado, let's open up the spark file.

[2:26] Susan Blackwell: I think we just have to, we just have to name it, Laura.

[2:26] Laura Camien: We just have to, we just have to name it.

[2:31] Susan Blackwell: I'm with you. Laura sounds like Brenda Vicaro.

[2:35] Laura Camien: Oh, she didn't. Brenda Vicaro famously do voiceover for feminine hygiene products.

[2:41] Susan Blackwell: I'm Brenda Vicaro. Um, you have been a little under the weather.

[2:47] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[2:47] Susan Blackwell: And we have been postponing this recording.

[2:51] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[2:51] Susan Blackwell: While you get your, because this is, you sound good.

[2:53] Laura Camien: This is the good version, friends.

[2:55] Susan Blackwell: But you sound great.

[2:56] Laura Camien: Oh, well, thank you. I don't, it doesn't sound great to me. It sounds squeaky.

[2:59] Susan Blackwell: And like the more excitable I get, the less I can actually make sound.

[3:07] Laura Camien: I want to get you wound up and see what sort of sounds come out.

[3:10] Susan Blackwell: Like things come out of me that I'm like, what was that?

[3:12] Laura Camien: So I'm gonna try to stay calm. But yeah, I had a respiratory infection. I've not had COVID, to my knowledge.

[3:20] Susan Blackwell: And so when this came about, I was like, oh well, this is, this must be it.

[3:24] Laura Camien: But it was not COVID. It was just a friendly everyday neighborhood respiratory infection.

[3:31] Susan Blackwell: Well, we're glad you're back sitting up and taking nourishment.

[3:35] Laura Camien: Thanks, baby. As my manager Dale Davis used to say, darling, you're sitting up and taking nourishment.

[3:41] Susan Blackwell: Oh.

[3:42] Laura Camien: Yeah, when you feel better after being sick.

[3:45] Susan Blackwell: Dale Davis.

[3:46] Laura Camien: And sometimes she would just use it as a figure of speech. Like if you'd say, Dale, how you doing today? She'd say, darling, I'm sitting up and taking nourishment.

[3:53] Susan Blackwell: There we go.

[3:54] Laura Camien: That's nice.

[3:55] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[4:04] Laura Camien: It's so funny because I have these little sparks that I thought about like just sparking you with a sparklet off the top.

[4:11] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[4:11] Laura Camien: But I'm nervous because I'm like, oh, maybe I should put them into a bigger spark.

[4:16] Susan Blackwell: Oh, hold on to those. Hold on to those because for a couple of reasons.

[4:20] Laura Camien: One, I think my story in full.

[4:24] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[4:25] Laura Camien: Historic intrigue, you say.

[4:26] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[4:26] Laura Camien: And also I've got a mini spark that I want to share with you.

[4:30] Susan Blackwell: What is it? What is it?

[4:30] Laura Camien: I'll take a sparklet. So it's a mini spark that related to the let's talk about death over dinner that you did just a couple weeks ago.

[4:39] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah?

[4:40] Laura Camien: I found an article that I'm gonna send to you. It's National Geographic, and it is about green funerals, the eco-friendly afterlife.

[4:49] Susan Blackwell: And it really outlines these three different ways. And I don't know if you knew, but earlier this year, New York State became just the sixth state in the nation to legalize something called human composting.

[5:02] Laura Camien: Oh yeah. I'm interested in that.

[5:04] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Did we talk about that? I can never remember what I think, what I say.

[5:10] Laura Camien: A little bit. We just brushed on it.

[5:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. I'm really into that human.

[5:16] Laura Camien: It's called instead of cremation, it's called, there's a few things. There's human composting, the mushroom suit, which apparently like actor Luke Perry did that.

[5:27] Susan Blackwell: Mm-hmm.

[5:28] Laura Camien: Yes. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu chose to be cremated not by flame but by water in a process called alkaline hydrolysis.

[5:41] Susan Blackwell: So there's like this is all in this article, these three different ways that you can be buried in an eco-friendly way.

[5:48] Laura Camien: I am into it. I had this as a whole spark, but as you know, if you listen to the podcast, I limit myself to one death-related spark per season just because I don't want to freak you all out.

[6:00] Susan Blackwell: Try. Really try.

[6:01] Laura Camien: But I have a whole, I have a whole pocket of my spark file dedicated to this very topic.

[6:09] Susan Blackwell: I like the composting one. I because I really love the idea of getting back a essentially a very large bucket of soil that you could use to plant flowers or vegetables or absolutely.

[6:26] Laura Camien: I want to be a big old oak tree.

[6:28] Susan Blackwell: Nice.

[6:29] Laura Camien: Well, this rolls right into my spark because for all of the death-related sparks in your spark file.

[6:39] Susan Blackwell: You have history sparks.

[6:46] Laura Camien: Oh, nice, a buried treasure spark.

[6:48] Susan Blackwell: Every single one. I swear, ever since you did that spark about armchair treasure hunters.

[6:53] Laura Camien: Yes.

[6:54] Susan Blackwell: And I've been trying to keep myself from doing literally a thousand sparks about buried treasure like every season.

[7:01] Laura Camien: Oh, I did do one. I did one about the treasure hidden in the Scottish Highlands.

[7:07] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[7:07] Laura Camien: After I watched that documentary called Garnet's Gold.

[7:11] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[7:12] Laura Camien: But I have almost shared a found treasure spark about a hundred times.

[7:17] Susan Blackwell: Like it could be ancient shipwrecks, which I have a thousand of those in my spark pile.

[7:24] Laura Camien: Um, or even like how they found like a medicinal bug in the Amazon, you know, that could cure us all of cancer, or they found dinosaur bones in a school playground, or so all the different types of treasure finding treasure, finding a Picasso at a garage sale.

[7:42] Susan Blackwell: Like I have so many of these.

[7:44] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[7:44] Susan Blackwell: I'm like, Laura, Laura, you must censor yourself.

[7:49] Laura Camien: Just parse them out slowly over time.

[7:52] Susan Blackwell: And today's our lucky day, it seems.

[7:53] Laura Camien: Today's lucky day because I went ahead and I did one.

[7:56] Susan Blackwell: Now, of all those treasures we talked about, of course, there's a big difference between an accidental find or a find of coincidence or a find of opportunity.

[8:07] Laura Camien: Like you happen to be at the Goodwill, and you really know your Renaissance painters.

[8:12] Susan Blackwell: So when you saw this Da Vinci sketch, you had a feeling it was something special.

[8:16] Laura Camien: So you spent the $10 to find out if it was anything.

[8:19] Susan Blackwell: That's very different from someone so convinced that they know where a Spanish shipwreck went down, like in the 1600s, and hiring a team of divers and equipment to go salvage it, etc.

[8:34] Laura Camien: Right.

[8:35] Susan Blackwell: That kind of story is sometimes triumphant and sometimes tragic.

[8:40] Laura Camien: And today I've got a story that is a bit of a mix of both.

[8:47] Susan Blackwell: Nice.

[8:48] Laura Camien: I was thinking today as I was writing the spark that I'm gonna share with you on the next episode. How, you know, sometimes we do sparks that are just sort of like, here's what these researchers have found about, you know, and those are great.

[9:01] Susan Blackwell: And sometimes they help us understand how to live.

[9:04] Laura Camien: But man, do I love a story spark where I'm just sort of like, all right. It's just like sit down and hear a tale.

[9:11] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I'm ready for a tale.

[9:13] Laura Camien: I'm glad you like it, Suze. But I do think, like creatively, there's so many juicy sparks within tales like this that can be realized in so many different ways if it so moves you.

[9:24] Susan Blackwell: So I invite you, listeners, listen, listen, listen, and take any of this that is of interest and run with it.

[9:34] Laura Camien: Okay, so I'm gonna start here. The thing responsible for this spark is an article in Popular Mechanics by David Howard.

[9:44] Susan Blackwell: Now, what are you doing poking around Popular Mechanics?

[9:47] Laura Camien: Thank you. Thank you.

[9:48] Susan Blackwell: That's right. Popular Mechanics. Sparks are everywhere, friends.

[9:53] Laura Camien: Did you used to get that subscription to your house because of your dad?

[9:56] Susan Blackwell: Well, we might have actually, but I'm not a big reader of it, I'll admit.

[10:01] Laura Camien: But I saw the headline on this, and I was like, that story is for me.

[10:06] Susan Blackwell: Online.

[10:07] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:08] Susan Blackwell: Got it. When I think of Popular Mechanics, I think of a subscription that came to our house.

[10:11] Laura Camien: I can see the logo incredibly clearly.

[10:14] Susan Blackwell: Yep. My dad got it because that's what dads got.

[10:18] Laura Camien: I feel like I quoted Popular Mechanics like in some book reports and things, you know, like I really do.

[10:24] Susan Blackwell: That's what was laid around the house.

[10:26] Laura Camien: Sure. So listen, today the hero of our story is perhaps an unreliable narrator.

[10:34] Susan Blackwell: And I need to tell you that up front.

[10:36] Laura Camien: But here's what we know about our hero, Chad Summers.

[10:40] Susan Blackwell: Chad Summers, you say.

[10:42] Laura Camien: Chad Summers is now 44 years old.

[10:45] Susan Blackwell: He grew up in Central Ohio.

[10:48] Laura Camien: Yes. Your turf, Suze.

[10:50] Susan Blackwell: Yes, Chad Summers.

[10:52] Laura Camien: So Chad Summers dropped out of school in ninth grade for a few reasons.

[10:57] Susan Blackwell: First of all, he had undiagnosed ADHD, and he found school rather hard to follow.

[11:05] Laura Camien: But also because at home he had so many chores, like genuine cutting corn, chopping hay, splitting wood, like no joke, kind of chores that had to be done daily.

[11:16] Susan Blackwell: And he lived mainly with his grandparents and did everything that he could to avoid his stepfather, who was often violent.

[11:24] Laura Camien: Just to give you a little picture of Chad Summers' background.

[11:27] Susan Blackwell: According to the article in Popular Mechanics, Summers is shy but charismatic, and he seems haunted by demons, which he comes by naturally.

[11:38] Laura Camien: Remember the violent stepfather is part of it.

[11:42] Susan Blackwell: But because he didn't finish school, Summers prides himself on being an autodidact, and he is obsessively that way, always learning.

[11:51] Laura Camien: And when he gets interested in something, he throws himself into it completely.

[12:02] Susan Blackwell: Hope says when he gets his mind on something, that's all there is for a while.

[12:07] Laura Camien: This was the case when Chad Summers went to his first rodeo and he got fixated on learning to ride a bull and started that very night.

[12:14] Susan Blackwell: He didn't stop learning it until eight years later, when he had conquered it, like winning regional competitions for years.

[12:21] Laura Camien: The same was true when he threw himself into learning to sing and play guitar.

[12:26] Susan Blackwell: He worked relentlessly until he could perform at open mics and shows and he entered a countrywide talent contest.

[12:33] Laura Camien: He made the top 10.

[12:34] Susan Blackwell: You know, obviously he feels a certain way about not having finished school.

[12:38] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[12:38] Susan Blackwell: But he is not an unintelligent person.

[12:41] Laura Camien: Clearly.

[12:42] Susan Blackwell: He's a very intelligent person.

[12:45] Laura Camien: In the midst of all of these things that he was learning, he also suffered legal problems, an opioid addiction, a heart attack, a near-fatal bout of blood poisoning.

[12:57] Susan Blackwell: He is resilient.

[13:00] Laura Camien: He is a resilient character. That much is quite apparent.

[13:05] Susan Blackwell: So he grew up, as I said, in Central Ohio.

[13:08] Laura Camien: And as a child, he was friends with the Bowser family.

[13:12] Susan Blackwell: Hope Bowser, who I just mentioned, eventually became his girlfriend.

[13:16] Laura Camien: But as kids, her family owned more than 300 acres of land, a farm, a home, a barn, bunkhouse, hayfields, all of it.

[13:26] Susan Blackwell: Central Ohio.

[13:27] Laura Camien: Uh-huh. And it sounds like their days were just idyllic and carefree, you know, climbing trees and camping out and picking mushrooms, in general, just having the run of the land as kids.

[13:43] Susan Blackwell: Back in the day, friends, back in the day, before we had so many screens in our lives.

[13:48] Laura Camien: But also in addition to all those chores, I'm sure.

[13:51] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[13:52] Laura Camien: Yes.

[13:53] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. So eventually, when Hope's parents passed away, the Bowser land was divided up, and she and one of her brothers inherited 20 acres, a 20-acre parcel of land.

[14:07] Laura Camien: And it features this steep wooded bluff and a creek. Over the years, Summers spent many, many days roaming that land, watching the birds and the animals, studying the trees, listening to the wind blow, all of it.

[14:24] Susan Blackwell: He says, I've seen it flowered, I've seen it flooded, I've seen it frozen, I've seen it angry, I've seen it calm.

[14:33] Laura Camien: Chad Summers seems like a very poetic guy, very connected to nature, honestly. So according to Popular Mechanics, whenever life turned venomous, as it often seemed to, these woods were his anecdote.

[14:51] Susan Blackwell: He says, I always told everybody there's something different about this place. You feel it more than you see it, he says.

[15:05] Laura Camien: Chad Summers and Hope are yard sailing. And as they pick through items in an attic, Bowser picks up an old framed photograph of two mustached men taken in the local area.

[15:20] Susan Blackwell: Hope was like, I feel like I know those men, like I know who they are. And Summers took a look and they both agreed. The men in the photo looked like Frank and Jesse James.

[15:32] Laura Camien: And they had seen those men in like old Reader's Digest books about the Wild West, and they were pretty sure this was a photo of them in their local area.

[15:43] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[15:44] Laura Camien: So they buy the photo for $15 and they start asking around, seeing if they could authenticate the photo. But everyone they talked to dismissed it because Jesse James and the James brothers had never been in Ohio.

[15:59] Susan Blackwell: That is the official history. They were never there.

[16:02] Laura Camien: Okay.

[16:04] Susan Blackwell: But in his conversations, Summers encountered one collector with a very interesting nugget. Apparently, Jesse James, the famed outlaw, had been a high-ranking member of the Knights of the Golden Circle.

[16:20] Laura Camien: Have you ever heard of the Knights of the Golden Circle, Suze?

[16:23] Susan Blackwell: I don't think so.

[16:24] Laura Camien: I don't think so.

[16:25] Susan Blackwell: Well, a side spark on all of that. I'm gonna talk more about them, but I'm just like, this is what I knew. I had to share this spark.

[16:32] Laura Camien: The Knights of the Golden Circle was a quasi military secret society formed during the Civil War.

[16:40] Susan Blackwell: That's not conspiracy theory, that's not made up. Like there's evidence of this little society club existing.

[16:48] Laura Camien: I believe you. According to Popular Mechanics, the Knights of the Golden Circle opposed the abolitionist movement.

[16:54] Susan Blackwell: Oh, and they sought to establish a new slave-holding state that encompassed the South and Mexico.

[17:04] Laura Camien: And legend holds that its leaders amassed a fortune in gold and other precious metals, reportedly in hopes of funding a second civil war.

[17:17] Susan Blackwell: So, like at a certain point, they were like, we're losing this, we're not gonna, but their eyes looked forward to okay, so we're gonna stash this cash, we're gonna go underground, we're gonna keep our movement going.

[17:31] Laura Camien: Some historians claim that the KGC, the Knights of the Golden Circle, their stashes of loot remain hidden around the country. Some of them have been found, and they weren't like enormous. But a lot of historians believe that there are still these stashes of gold that were the KGCs.

[17:53] Susan Blackwell: According to a book called Rebel Gold, One Man's Quest to Crack the Code Behind the Secret Treasure of the Confederacy. It was written by Warren Gettler and Bob Brewer. It is about the pursuit of that treasure.

[18:09] Laura Camien: According to them, the organization had a central strategy to maintain a powerful hidden base of political military operations in the American Deep South, no matter the outcome of the Civil War itself, and with ample treasure to finance them.

[18:31] Susan Blackwell: I'm going to come back to this spark in just a second. But let me say right here, just flat out, Jesse James was not a good man.

[18:40] Laura Camien: Jesse James, a member of this society, he was not a good man.

[18:45] Susan Blackwell: He has been glorified in our history books as an American outlaw. That part is known. But these other details, I wasn't exactly surprised by them, but I don't know if I hadn't been aware of them or I know that there's a sort of a glorification that can surround like these bandits, these historical bandits.

[19:04] Laura Camien: Yes.

[19:04] Susan Blackwell: There are people who get very caught up in that.

[19:07] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[19:07] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And in fact, you know, that rugged individualism about like the old West, he sort of personifies that. And I've never really been enamored by him or studied him.

[19:20] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[19:21] Susan Blackwell: But I'm aware a little bit like that Brad Pitt film about him being killed by Robert Ford, Jesse James killed by the by the rebel Robert Ford or something like that. But the truth is, as I learned more, Jesse James was a murderer, a thief, a terrorist, and a white supremacist. Flat out.

[19:42] Laura Camien: I don't think I knew that.

[19:44] Susan Blackwell: I did not either.

[19:45] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[19:45] Susan Blackwell: Now, I might have been able to put two and two together had I thought more about Jesse James.

[19:50] Laura Camien: Right.

[19:51] Susan Blackwell: But I hadn't, frankly, given him a lot of thought.

[19:54] Laura Camien: So this spark is not about glorifying him.

[19:56] Susan Blackwell: Isn't this all depicted in a very famous episode of The Brady Bunch?

[20:00] Laura Camien: Probably.

[20:01] Susan Blackwell: There's a very famous episode of The Brady Bunch called Bobby's Hero, where Bobby Brady is just obsessed with Jesse James. And then by the end, they reveal that Jesse James was actually not a good guy.

[20:15] Laura Camien: So I feel like this episode of The Spark File is a hot new take on that episode of The Brady Bunch.

[20:21] Susan Blackwell: It's all about the Brady Punch.

[20:22] Laura Camien: You know what's funny is that I totally remember that episode. And maybe that was part of like genuinely not ever taking on Jesse James as a hero in my mind.

[20:31] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[20:32] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[20:32] Susan Blackwell: So I just wanted to make clear this intrigue about his gold is about the treasure hunt. That's what sparks me, not about glorifying the person.

[20:43] Laura Camien: White supremacist. He was from a slave-owning family who fought and killed in an effort to prevent emancipation. So what a guy.

[20:52] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, none of this is intended to glorify the man Jesse James. But I am excited by the prospect of uncovering some truths and maybe even dispelling some legends.

[21:02] Laura Camien: So I want to pause and offer up one of the like, what do we make of it? It's right here in the middle of this spark. Friends, the knights of the golden circle. They wanted to maintain a military and political power, no matter the outcome of the civil war, and they wanted to fund a second civil war.

[21:24] Susan Blackwell: I mean, come on.

[21:25] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[21:26] Susan Blackwell: Looking where we are now. A, why isn't a sequel to National Treasure being made yet? We are primed and ready for a movie or a series about a secret society that existed before and during the Civil War.

[21:40] Laura Camien: When the war was lost, they went underground, they hid their money until it was time to rise up again and create another civil war.

[21:47] Susan Blackwell: Never having changed their belief system and their dedication to making a slave state exist in this country.

[22:00] Laura Camien: So it's not a big leap of imagination here to cut to what if 150 years later they've come to fight their war again.

[22:09] Susan Blackwell: Do you know what I mean?

[22:10] Laura Camien: I do.

[22:11] Susan Blackwell: And the North has to, we have to defend our freedoms and we have to prevail again. We have to double down on freedom and equality for all.

[22:19] Laura Camien: I leave it with you, readers. Write that story, please.

[22:21] Susan Blackwell: Listeners, I mean, write it. I need it.

[22:26] Laura Camien: I'm of half of mind to write it myself because I'm very like, I have so many thoughts about this, but also I'm like, I'm probably not the most qualified to write this.

[22:35] Susan Blackwell: So someone take it and run with it. There are people that I feel like are very neurologically suited for an exercise like this, a creative exercise.

[22:47] Laura Camien: It freaks me out, just the thought, the possibility of it.

[22:51] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[22:52] Laura Camien: And so the thought of living with that material long enough to write something like that.

[22:57] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[22:58] Laura Camien: Would be the thing that would bottleneck me. I don't want to fixate my mind on that for so long.

[23:05] Susan Blackwell: It's rough.

[23:06] Laura Camien: It scares me.

[23:07] Susan Blackwell: But I think the key to it is fixing your mind on the positive outcome because we would tell the story where they absolutely don't succeed.

[23:17] Laura Camien: The knights of the golden circle are squashed, diminished, and ended forever.

[23:23] Susan Blackwell: It's giving me strong Tarantino vibes. Just that sort of inglorious bastards where it's sort of like bad guys are going down.

[23:26] Laura Camien: That's right.

[23:26] Susan Blackwell: Bad guys are going down.

[23:34] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[23:34] Susan Blackwell: So okay, take that and run with it. But back to Chad Summers.

[23:39] Laura Camien: Soumers remembered hearing about a local gold mine when he was a kid.

[23:45] Susan Blackwell: And again, this is from the article. His grandfather had run a logging operation. And at times, he would bring young Chad Summers along.

[23:55] Laura Camien: And Summers recalled a very specific episode from one such outing. His grandfather was operating his knuckle boom. I say that like I know what a knuckle boom is.

[24:06] Susan Blackwell: He was operating his knuckle boom. And Chad was watching when a woman on a porch nearby called over to him. And she said, keep your eyes open, because Jesse James had buried gold there in the 1800s and nobody had found the treasure.

[24:24] Laura Camien: It was right across the road from Hope Bowser's property. And he recollects this now. He's like, whoa, wait a minute. I remember this woman saying that when I was younger.

[24:35] Susan Blackwell: He admitted that the idea was far fetched. It was unlikely that a treasure was there. And even if it was, it was unlikely that he could find it. He says he had no dreams about like being a treasure hunter.

[24:50] Laura Camien: And yet, his mind just would not let it go. That's the kind of mind he has.

[24:55] Susan Blackwell: That's right. It just kept coming back. And Hope, his girlfriend, was dubious, but she seemed to have enough evidence in his fixations to believe in him.

[25:06] Laura Camien: So she said, Chad thinks differently than most people. He sees things that other people look at and don't see.

[25:15] Susan Blackwell: So one day, Chad is roaming the Bowser's land, those 20 acres. He's just going for a long walk to clear his mind about things. And according to the article, after roaming around for a while, he'd taken a break to smoke a cigarette on this slender ledge hard up against this huge old birch tree, situated about two-thirds of the way down this steep several hundred foot bluff.

[25:41] Laura Camien: Wow.

[25:42] Susan Blackwell: He had always noticed this particular tree. Uh-huh. Its base sort of split off into three large limbs that formed kind of a cocky W. Uh-huh. And it stood largely alone.

[25:57] Laura Camien: The article said, as if it had bought out its neighbors, which I thought was cute. But like it, it was like kind of all by itself. So relaxing there, he drifted into kind of a trance, a daydream, in the way that he explains it.

[26:12] Susan Blackwell: And in the midst of it, he looked over and saw Jesse James sitting next to him. This is sort of in a half dream state, he's in. Jesse James of Old West Lore, the notorious bank and train robber.

[26:28] Laura Camien: Summers had been thinking a lot about James, obviously, since that photograph. Here he was, wearing a round brimmed duster, flicking ashes from a cigar. And Jesse James says, This is where I'm gonna bury it. This is where I'm gonna bury the biggest treasure I ever buried in my life.

[26:48] Susan Blackwell: And then he got up and walked off. Summers woke up. He could hear the creek gurgling below, and into the breeze, he said, This is where I'll dig.

[26:51] Laura Camien: This is where I'll dig, and immediately started digging that day in that moment with his pair of hands.

[27:06] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god.

[27:07] Laura Camien: He got to get that knuckle boom from his granddad.

[27:10] Susan Blackwell: Need a knuckle boom.

[27:11] Laura Camien: Need a knuckle boom, yeah.

[27:12] Susan Blackwell: This is probably where I should stop and tell you about the map.

[27:23] Susan Blackwell: That map was hand drawn and supposedly showed the location of a large underground Confederate depository in Tennessee on an old battle site.

[27:37] Laura Camien: Or at least that's what the handwritten top of the map appears to say.

[27:42] Susan Blackwell: The words on the top of the map in hand, in like scratchy handwriting, are an 1862-63 battle site.

[27:52] Laura Camien: But Summers, you know the way he sees things differently?

[27:56] Susan Blackwell: He notices that the lettering of the word "battle" was written so that it could read one, three.

[28:03] Laura Camien: You know how like the B, yeah, yeah.

[28:05] Susan Blackwell: If you make the line and then you they don't touch.

[28:08] Laura Camien: One, three, O, H, I O, O.

[28:13] Susan Blackwell: Because the two T's look connected.

[28:15] Laura Camien: They look like an H.

[28:16] Susan Blackwell: 13 Ohio.

[28:17] Laura Camien: 13 Ohio, with the 13 referring to Ohio Route 13.

[28:23] Susan Blackwell: This is giving me treasure hunt so hard.

[28:26] Laura Camien: Right.

[28:27] Susan Blackwell: Or maybe it was a KGC symbol.

[28:29] Laura Camien: And if he turned the map sideways, the way they wrote the word "Nashville" now looked like "Zanesville."

[28:37] Susan Blackwell: Zanesville, Ohio, baby.

[28:40] Laura Camien: There you go. You know where that is?

[28:41] Susan Blackwell: I know exactly where that is.

[28:43] Laura Camien: And I remember visiting Zanesville, Ohio, and there's a very famous civil rights activist and feminist named Bella Abzug.

[28:53] Susan Blackwell: And I feel like I remember standing in front of a glass case, and there was one of her famous hats in the case.

[29:01] Laura Camien: Oh, cool.

[29:02] Susan Blackwell: Very cool. I've always associated that with Zanesville, Ohio.

[29:06] Laura Camien: So I think I have been to Zanesville.

[29:08] Susan Blackwell: Well, I think Zanesville's got some other things going on too.

[29:12] Laura Camien: So he pulled up this Google Earth image of Bowser's property and laid it alongside this map.

[29:19] Susan Blackwell: And the features of the land lined up exactly.

[29:22] Laura Camien: Now, of course, you know, when that map was made, all they're just doing like trees, ledges, streams, etc.

[29:29] Susan Blackwell: Like they're like the features of the land, basically.

[29:33] Laura Camien: They line up with this map, and some of the symbols on the map match symbols that he had seen carved into trees on the Bowser property.

[29:44] Susan Blackwell: The symbols include like a little turtle, a wolf, the letters J, J.

[29:51] Laura Camien: Part of me at this point is like we're pulling things out of thin air here.

[29:57] Susan Blackwell: Right? Like the skeptical part of me.

[29:59] Laura Camien: She's grasping at straws.

[30:01] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, like when people today are working on conspiracy theories and they're like, if you turn the seven sideways, it looks like an L.

[30:09] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[30:10] Susan Blackwell: But the other part of me is like, you know, if the symbols on the trees are aligning, this is of interest.

[30:17] Laura Camien: I would be into like finding out more.

[30:20] Susan Blackwell: So he had another tool in his arsenal.

[30:24] Laura Camien: He had a copy of that book, Rebel Gold.

[30:27] Susan Blackwell: And as he searched the woods, he found the symbols on the trees, the hearts, the turkey tracks, the turtles.

[30:34] Laura Camien: They were identical to the ones described by the authors in the book.

[30:39] Susan Blackwell: So these were actual symbols used by the Knights of the Golden Circle.

[30:45] Laura Camien: For what we don't know.

[30:47] Susan Blackwell: But they don't just exist here in Ohio.

[30:50] Laura Camien: Like they're all over the country.

[30:52] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[30:53] Laura Camien: So he's not making that up, right?

[30:55] Susan Blackwell: It seemed a little undeniable that there was something there and they needed to investigate further.

[31:00] Laura Camien: So on the day that Chad Summers had the vision of Jesse James saying, "This is where I'll bury it," he hadn't brought a shovel with him or anything.

[31:09] Susan Blackwell: He was just going for a walk.

[31:10] Laura Camien: But there he was, energized by the vision, and he starts digging with his bare hands, with sticks, anything he can find.

[31:18] Susan Blackwell: And he doesn't stop until the hole is like three feet deep.

[31:21] Laura Camien: He realizes, of course, that he would look like an insane person if anyone happened to come upon him digging like this, but he couldn't stop.

[31:30] Susan Blackwell: And in retrospect, he says, like he had always noticed this particular tree.

[31:35] Laura Camien: Like I said, it was like that W.

[31:38] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[31:38] Laura Camien: Stood kind of by itself.

[31:41] Susan Blackwell: And so he'd always felt like there was something kind of special about this spot.

[31:45] Laura Camien: He realizes, of course, he's gonna need a shovel.

[31:47] Susan Blackwell: He returns with one, and according to Popular Mechanics, within a day or so, the hole was more than six feet deep.

[31:54] Laura Camien: He brought an extension ladder in and a generator to run light down there so that he could get even further down.

[32:03] Susan Blackwell: At around 10 feet down, he was too deep to like keep tossing out the dirt.

[32:08] Laura Camien: Yeah, that's serious work.

[32:11] Susan Blackwell: That is serious work.

[32:12] Laura Camien: Have you tried to dig a hole lately?

[32:14] Susan Blackwell: It is really hard.

[32:15] Laura Camien: It's really hard.

[32:16] Susan Blackwell: Now, this land here seemed to be soft.

[32:20] Laura Camien: Okay.

[32:20] Susan Blackwell: Like he says that like it wasn't still but still 10 feet, you're in way over your head.

[32:27] Laura Camien: And yeah, how are you getting the dirt out that you're that you're uh shopping?

[32:33] Susan Blackwell: So he doesn't get a knuckle boom, but he does get a bucket, and he would fill it, climb up, haul it out, dump it, and repeat just over and over again.

[32:45] Laura Camien: He uses this grindingly slow method until he reaches 15 feet, then 20 feet.

[32:53] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[32:54] Laura Camien: And then after a month, he maxed out at 25 feet because that's as long as the extension ladder was.

[33:02] Susan Blackwell: While he's digging, he finds artifacts like an old harmonica, a cigar butt made from a single leaf of tobacco, both suggestive that someone had been there many, many decades ago.

[33:16] Laura Camien: Eventually he gets to 30 feet down in the hole.

[33:19] Susan Blackwell: His shovel gave off a metallic ting when he hits something.

[33:26] Laura Camien: Smooth, hard, blue-gray surface.

[33:29] Susan Blackwell: It appeared to be like the top of a vault, but he couldn't penetrate it with his shovel.

[33:35] Laura Camien: And every drill bit that he tried became stuck.

[33:38] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[33:39] Laura Camien: So around this time, Summers starts talking to friends, and some offered to help, but his girlfriend was like, "Ixnay on the talking about what the hell you're doing."

[33:49] Susan Blackwell: Because people think you're nuts.

[33:52] Laura Camien: And she said, like people were ridiculing him and laughing at him.

[33:56] Susan Blackwell: So she was like, "Can we just keep this a little quieter, please?"

[34:01] Laura Camien: So at this point, he has a hole in the ground 30 feet deep.

[34:04] Susan Blackwell: He's got a ladder to get him in and out of it.

[34:07] Laura Camien: He's got it lit up, and he's starting to wonder about the safety of it, honestly.

[34:12] Susan Blackwell: Like the whole thing, it could cave in on him.

[34:14] Laura Camien: You think?

[34:15] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[34:16] Laura Camien: But remember, when Chad Summers gets something in his mind, it's in his mind.

[34:20] Susan Blackwell: I know, but if like if just like a little bit of like the dirt starts to cave in, you're 30 feet underground.

[34:20] Laura Camien: 30 feet underground.

[34:29] Susan Blackwell: And the fact that the ground was relatively soft.

[34:33] Laura Camien: Oh, that was a great thing for him digging it out.

[34:36] Susan Blackwell: But some rainfall, like all it would take is some rainfall, that would not work in his favor.

[34:42] Laura Camien: That is insane.

[34:44] Susan Blackwell: So he's determined to move forward.

[34:47] Laura Camien: But before he can, like reality hits him hard.

[34:52] Susan Blackwell: Like the best way to say this is like Summers seems like he lived hand to mouth.

[34:59] Laura Camien: I well, if he has enough time to dig a hole 30 feet deep, he's obviously not gainfully employed.

[35:05] Susan Blackwell: I don't think so.

[35:06] Laura Camien: I don't think he's using all his vacation days for that.

[35:08] Susan Blackwell: He is not.

[35:09] Laura Camien: So he and his girlfriend needed to make money, and they got hired to remodel some homes in Columbus, Ohio, which is about an hour away.

[35:19] Susan Blackwell: So they relocated for the time being to be closer to the work, and he had to leave the hole.

[35:25] Laura Camien: He needed the job, and it was agonizing to leave the hole there, but he really didn't have a choice.

[35:30] Susan Blackwell: So he tarps it up, but it was definitely some real unfinished business here.

[35:35] Laura Camien: Sure.

[35:35] Susan Blackwell: He had just struck the metal at the bottom of the hole.

[35:39] Laura Camien: So it was a bit crazy making that he had to leave the project and abandon it for now.

[35:44] Susan Blackwell: I just want to say, like if indeed that was metal 30 feet down, not a rock, not naturally occurring, or that is weird.

[35:56] Laura Camien: It's weird, right?

[35:57] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[35:58] Laura Camien: It's weird.

[35:59] Susan Blackwell: Let me tell you some more.

[36:01] Laura Camien: So things got a little bit rough for Summers and Hope, his girlfriend at this point.

[36:06] Susan Blackwell: They worked for a year or more, a year in Columbus.

[36:10] Laura Camien: It's now 2021.

[36:12] Susan Blackwell: Their employer owed them thousands of dollars, kept saying he'd make good after the next job and the next job, and then he stiffed them completely.

[36:22] Laura Camien: He just took off and left them empty-handed.

[36:24] Susan Blackwell: During the pandemic, so Summers and Bowers couldn't pay their rent.

[36:37] Laura Camien: And the only positive thing was that losing that job meant that he could get back to his Jesse James project.

[36:44] Susan Blackwell: So back at the dig site, the hole had partially collapsed.

[36:49] Laura Camien: He started to get back down in there, but I don't know, time had passed, and he just felt like, God, this has gotten a little bit sketchier than he remembered in terms of safety.

[37:00] Susan Blackwell: But he did get back down there.

[37:02] Laura Camien: And when he looked around, he noticed that some rocks had shifted, and it revealed an opening like a shaft leading into the hillside.

[37:14] Susan Blackwell: Again, too dangerous to go exploring there without help.

[37:19] Laura Camien: So I don't think I mentioned that those maps that he's looking at, they also describe these tunnels, these underground tunnels.

[37:27] Susan Blackwell: Oh shit.

[37:27] Laura Camien: You know, hiding places, et cetera.

[37:29] Susan Blackwell: So around this time, Chad Summers happened to be watching the show on History Channel called Beyond Oak Island, which, if you're not familiar with it, is about lost treasure on Oak Island.

[37:40] Laura Camien: And it features a man named Warren Gettler.

[37:44] Susan Blackwell: He's a renowned treasure hunter, among other things, and co-author of that book I mentioned, Rebel Gold.

[37:50] Laura Camien: So Summers decided to reach out.

[37:53] Susan Blackwell: He wrote to Gettler on Facebook and he said, according to Popular Mechanics, he wrote, "We need to have a conversation concerning certain KGC maps and what I have discovered here."

[38:06] Laura Camien: Like a concrete vault 30 feet in the ground, marked by a giant arrow at the bottom of a giant J where an alleged gold mine once was.

[38:17] Susan Blackwell: Sound interesting enough for you.

[38:33] Laura Camien: Clickbaity, yeah.

[38:34] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[38:35] Laura Camien: When Gettler called him an hour later, his first question was, "How far are you from Zanesville?"

[38:44] Susan Blackwell: What?

[38:44] Laura Camien: His book had documented a Zanesville connection with Jesse James.

[38:50] Susan Blackwell: Oh.

[38:51] Laura Camien: And Summers said, "I'm about 15 miles away, Mr. Gettler."

[38:54] Susan Blackwell: And Gettler replied, "Call me Warren and I'm coming."

[38:59] Laura Camien: So Warren Gettler had documented that Jesse James and maybe his brother Frank had been in Ohio.

[39:07] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[39:08] Laura Camien: That's right.

[39:09] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[39:09] Laura Camien: But see, I'll get into this a little more.

[39:11] Susan Blackwell: But if you believe that Robert Ford killed Jesse James, which is what the history books say, then he never, there is no Ohio chapter.

[39:23] Laura Camien: But other people say Jesse James faked his death and then went to Ohio and did all of these things.

[39:31] Susan Blackwell: So even in Jesse James historians, you've got a split in beliefs.

[39:36] Laura Camien: But like I said, Warren Gettler is a journalist.

[39:39] Susan Blackwell: He is a geophysics enthusiast and the co-author of the book, Rebel Gold.

[39:46] Laura Camien: He is a long time student of the Knights of the Golden Circle history.

[39:52] Susan Blackwell: So that book, Rebel Gold, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2003.

[39:57] Laura Camien: And the popularity of that book and his depth of knowledge of the subject matter actually led to him scoring a consultant role for the film National Treasure Book of Secrets, which I mentioned earlier.

[40:10] Susan Blackwell: Oh shit.

[40:11] Laura Camien: I haven't seen any of those movies.

[40:13] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh, Suze.

[40:15] Laura Camien: Are you kidding?

[40:16] Susan Blackwell: I think I auditioned for one of them.

[40:18] Laura Camien: I did not book it.

[40:19] Susan Blackwell: And then you're like, I'm gonna hold this grudge and never watch them.

[40:23] Laura Camien: No, I just I was like, I don't think that movie was for me.

[40:26] Susan Blackwell: Is it for me?

[40:27] Laura Camien: I think they are super fun.

[40:30] Susan Blackwell: I think they're fun.

[40:32] Laura Camien: And the way they weave in history, some true, some question mark.

[40:37] Susan Blackwell: You know what I mean?

[40:38] Laura Camien: Like, you don't know.

[40:39] Susan Blackwell: I find them to be delightful in certain ways, yeah.

[40:43] Laura Camien: So your man, Warren Gettler consulted on that on one of those films.

[40:49] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[40:50] Laura Camien: And it's time for another one.

[40:51] Susan Blackwell: It really is.

[40:53] Susan Blackwell: So that book and those movies elevated his profile, and he kind of became the go-to guy for not only the treasure hunting community, but the very specific niche group of people who focused their attention specifically on the Knights of the Golden Circle's treasure.

[41:15] Laura Camien: So he has personally investigated several sites purportedly connected to this confederate organization, including one on public land in Pennsylvania, where Gettler says the FBI was allowed by a federal court to dig largely based on his research.

[41:33] Susan Blackwell: And things get complicated, right?

[41:35] Laura Camien: So when the government got involved, and then people didn't really get to see all the results or the outcome of that dig, etc.

[41:44] Susan Blackwell: Oh, so we don't know.

[41:45] Laura Camien: They may have uncovered something that I'm talking about this previous dig in Pennsylvania.

[41:50] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[41:50] Laura Camien: That's what I'm talking about, too.

[41:51] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah, we don't know.

[41:52] Laura Camien: We don't know.

[41:53] Susan Blackwell: Well, that's unsatisfying.

[41:55] Laura Camien: Very, very unsatisfying.

[41:57] Susan Blackwell: And like I said, like he I think he's been responsible for other small, just a small, meaning like a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold, which is not small, but you know, they found they have found these little caches.

[42:12] Laura Camien: But everyone believes there is more.

[42:16] Susan Blackwell: But Summers and this site are very different because it's on private property.

[42:22] Laura Camien: And his girlfriend and her brother own the property, which means that no government agencies even need to be involved or contacted in any way.

[42:32] Susan Blackwell: And the hope is that after tests confirm that something is in fact here, a crew will come in to dig it up.

[42:40] Laura Camien: Now, Gettler calls his friend Brad Richards, who is a history teacher, whose expertise in the 19th-century American help him land a role on the History Channel show, The Curse of the Civil War Gold.

[42:53] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[42:54] Laura Camien: So these two guys know a lot about this particular topic.

[42:57] Susan Blackwell: So cut to March 2022, Gettler visits the Bowser property in hopes of getting down into that hole and identifying and recovering what they all hope and believe to be KGC gold.

[43:10] Laura Camien: He's going to use his geophysical equipment to do a ground scan.

[43:14] Susan Blackwell: Now getting to the site, Suze, involves driving several miles of pavement past crumbling barns, front yards full of like graveyards of old cars.

[43:26] Laura Camien: Sure.

[43:26] Susan Blackwell: It turns to gravel.

[43:35] Laura Camien: The last half mile from there, you have to go on foot and descending this wooded slope.

[43:42] Susan Blackwell: According to Gettler, he believes Jesse James chose this site for its natural attributes.

[43:48] Laura Camien: There is a creek of water.

[43:51] Susan Blackwell: So you got water there.

[43:52] Laura Camien: There are birch trees, which live a long time and are also soft enough to carve clues into.

[43:59] Susan Blackwell: And at that time, there was a nearby stagecoach station.

[44:03] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[44:04] Susan Blackwell: From the top of this bluff, he could keep a lookout over the whole location without giving the exact location away.

[44:11] Laura Camien: So there's a lot of pluses as to why someone might choose this location to do what they did.

[44:18] Susan Blackwell: Now, at various points in this adventure, media have been allowed in, which is how Popular Mechanics and others got a firsthand view of all of this.

[44:29] Laura Camien: In fact, Gettler even shows them a series of these birch trees on the property that he says proved Jesse James's activities did in fact happen there.

[44:41] Susan Blackwell: One carving is a very simple drawing of a man's face with a hat on it.

[44:46] Laura Camien: And it is supposedly representative of a little self-portrait of James, rudimentary, you know, self-portrait of James, and a blueprint of the tunnel system, which begins just a hundred yards away where the treasure is.

[45:03] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[45:04] Laura Camien: So other trees show the carvings, like I said before: the turkey tracks, rabbits, hearts, other symbols.

[45:11] Susan Blackwell: Gettler believes he saw one tree with the carving, Jesse W.

[45:17] Laura Camien: James and the year 1882.

[45:21] Susan Blackwell: If it was carved by Jesse James himself, that would have been proof that he did not, in fact, die at the hands of Robert Ford in 1882, as has been recorded in the history books.

[45:32] Laura Camien: It would mean that the long told story of Jesse James faking his own death so that he could carry out his missions of hiding gold for the Confederacy were true.

[45:42] Susan Blackwell: The thing is, it's really easy to write these things off.

[45:45] Laura Camien: But according to Gettler, it gets more complex when there's a pattern like recognition around the country, meaning the symbols found here match imagery found in Arkansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and it matches the KGC records that exist in the National Archives.

[46:05] Susan Blackwell: Like it's not someone's fantasy.

[46:07] Laura Camien: Those things exist.

[46:08] Susan Blackwell: That documentation exists.

[46:10] Laura Camien: They had a vast, complex, rigorous system of communication that really that's not up for dispute.

[46:18] Susan Blackwell: Like we know that to be true.

[46:20] Laura Camien: So, long story short, they do this geophysical reading.

[46:24] Susan Blackwell: They bring in crazy equipment, metal detectors, they use heat maps to determine the size and shape of whatever is in the ground there.

[46:33] Laura Camien: And sure enough, they confirm there is something about 10 to 20 feet below the surface.

[46:39] Susan Blackwell: It's eight feet wide and three feet deep.

[46:43] Laura Camien: And although they cannot confirm that it is gold, they can confirm there is a shit ton of metal in there.

[46:50] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[46:51] Laura Camien: What kind of metal?

[46:52] Susan Blackwell: We do not know.

[46:53] Laura Camien: And it is showing up in the exact place where that hand-drawn map says it would be.

[47:01] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[47:02] Laura Camien: So they rule out other possibilities.

[47:05] Susan Blackwell: There are no naturally occurring metals in the ground here.

[47:08] Laura Camien: It's not a location where scrap metal is likely to have been buried for any reason.

[47:14] Susan Blackwell: And they all really feel we are onto something.

[47:18] Laura Camien: But everyone except John Summers has a job that they need to get back to.

[47:23] Susan Blackwell: So they have to leave it there on that particular trip.

[47:26] Laura Camien: But they keep talking, and Gettler plans another trip in the near future.

[47:31] Susan Blackwell: But in the meantime, Summers continues to look for evidence or proof that Jesse James actually was in Ohio.

[47:39] Laura Camien: And he turns up a few things.

[47:41] Susan Blackwell: They can be disputed, but here are a few things he turns up.

[47:45] Laura Camien: There are letters, about 20 letters from Jesse James III, also known as Orvis Lee Hawke.

[47:55] Susan Blackwell: In one of those letters from 1948, he writes about Zanesville and quote your lookout at W, which they believe is a reference to the W-shaped tree.

[48:10] Laura Camien: And in another letter, he wrote, quote, I do know that we are on track at W.

[48:16] Susan Blackwell: Now, also in 1948, in newspaper articles from the Zanesville Signal, they wrote about local kinfolk who claimed Jesse James had once lived here.

[48:30] Laura Camien: And they wrote that in 1948.

[48:33] Susan Blackwell: Do you know what I mean?

[48:35] Laura Camien: Like these sorts of things.

[48:37] Susan Blackwell: Now, some people are like, well, that could have just been like local gossip being reported on a slow news day.

[48:43] Laura Camien: But the next year they wrote a bigger feature about how a whole bunch of James's relatives, including Hawke and Roscoe James, which was James's nephew, had converged on the area looking for treasure.

[48:58] Susan Blackwell: So they would have been looking for his grandfather's treasure in 1948.

[49:04] Laura Camien: And here again, in this story, written in 1948, James had faked his death and then gone to Ohio in 1882, posing as a man named Jay Franklin Dalton.

[49:19] Susan Blackwell: J. Frank Dalton, a lightning rod salesman.

[49:23] Laura Camien: In that article, they wrote, the old fellow who claims to be Jesse James has supplied his friends here with a map, which is supposed to lead them to a spot near Zanesville where he buried one and one half million dollars worth of gold bullion, the story says.

[49:44] Susan Blackwell: The team recovered only an empty metal box, but reported locating many strange-looking marks on tree trunks just where Jesse said we'd find them.

[49:55] Laura Camien: And according to Popular Mechanics, Hope took this writer to meet a woman named Lavinia Nethers, who's 86 years old now.

[50:05] Susan Blackwell: She has lived in the area her entire life.

[50:08] Laura Camien: She recalls being told that her husband's great-great-grandmother provided Jesse James with meals and laundry service when he passed through the area.

[50:21] Susan Blackwell: One day, she informed Jesse that she was facing bankruptcy.

[50:26] Laura Camien: She told him that the bank was going to foreclose on her farm the next day, and so she wouldn't be able to work for him anymore.

[50:48] Susan Blackwell: She paid off the loan, and the next day the bank was robbed.

[50:54] Laura Camien: Yes, he got his money back.

[50:56] Susan Blackwell: So these are like local stories that have been handed down.

[50:59] Laura Camien: You can't really plant those after the fact.

[51:01] Susan Blackwell: Those are people saying, like, look, I can't verify it, but I know that something's gone on here.

[51:08] Laura Camien: So while everyone else is gone, Summers used a camera on a snake to get into some of the tunnels and spaces and took really grainy photographs.

[51:17] Susan Blackwell: They show man-made walls, and in some of them you can see what appear to be gold bars.

[51:25] Laura Camien: But you can't be sure.

[51:26] Susan Blackwell: It's a grainy photograph from a little snake camera.

[51:30] Laura Camien: But another visit comes, they bring big equipment.

[51:34] Susan Blackwell: Bring on the knuckle booms.

[51:35] Laura Camien: Yeah, I don't think it's a knuckle boom.

[51:38] Susan Blackwell: Damn it.

[51:38] Laura Camien: I want it to be.

[51:39] Susan Blackwell: I wish I could fold that back into this story.

[51:43] Laura Camien: I think maybe our technology has evolved beyond knuckle booms, maybe.

[51:47] Susan Blackwell: So they brought they brought some other things.

[51:49] Laura Camien: They brought an excavator.

[51:51] Susan Blackwell: And this is a pretty dangerous slope that they're working on.

[51:54] Laura Camien: You know, they're on and off moments this whole time it's gonna work, it's not gonna work.

[51:59] Susan Blackwell: Try something else, look for another way, and on and on.

[52:03] Laura Camien: Finally, everything is ready to go with this excavation.

[52:07] Susan Blackwell: At the very last second, two of Hope Bowser's siblings arrive to question the excavation and ask that the project come to a halt until they can clarify whether Hope's brother, the co-owner of the land, has signed off on this dig.

[52:24] Laura Camien: Now, Suze, when I read that, I thought, are you kidding me?

[52:27] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[52:29] Laura Camien: You've gotten this far and that detail isn't sorted out.

[52:31] Susan Blackwell: But that's like the, yeah, it is.

[52:33] Laura Camien: This is this, this is a great spark for a screenplay.

[52:37] Susan Blackwell: It is, right?

[52:40] Laura Camien: Yes.

[52:42] Susan Blackwell: I'm on a silver platter right here.

[52:44] Laura Camien: On a silver frickin' platter.

[52:47] Susan Blackwell: You know, if you want to write it, just I'll email us.

[52:51] Laura Camien: I'll send you this article.

[52:52] Susan Blackwell: There are Chads and Karens that get nuts when like a cook shopping cart isn't properly returned in a parking lot.

[52:59] Laura Camien: So of course there are people when you introduce the possibility of a man-made room 30 feet underground filled with gold bars.

[53:07] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, people would go crazy.

[53:10] Laura Camien: Which doesn't surprise me, but just why didn't it happen earlier?

[53:13] Susan Blackwell: Because this is not the first trip that Gettler and those guys have been there.

[53:17] Laura Camien: Like it's crazy.

[53:19] Susan Blackwell: It's the siblings or cousins.

[53:21] Laura Camien: Who is it?

[53:22] Susan Blackwell: Siblings?

[53:23] Laura Camien: Two other siblings come to make sure that the sibling that is the co-owner of this property has signed off.

[53:30] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[53:30] Laura Camien: I mean, all of this got me thinking about story, story structure.

[53:34] Susan Blackwell: You know, I love to like think about this.

[53:37] Laura Camien: And we've talked about this before, but one of the most challenging things for writers to do is create conflict and obstacles that really put their hero through the ringer.

[53:48] Susan Blackwell: And then the siblings roll into town.

[53:50] Laura Camien: Exactly.

[53:51] Susan Blackwell: And then the siblings.

[53:52] Laura Camien: So in this story, we have external conflict of the land itself and the challenges it poses.

[53:58] Susan Blackwell: Internal conflict of self-doubt.

[54:01] Laura Camien: Am I crazy? Or is this something real?

[54:03] Susan Blackwell: Now we have interpersonal conflict.

[54:05] Laura Camien: These are family members that are gonna stand in in the way of this project.

[54:09] Susan Blackwell: So in this moment, they have to call it all off again until the family gets it sorted.

[54:15] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[54:16] Susan Blackwell: So the project hits another roadblock.

[54:18] Laura Camien: Again, the only person who doesn't depart after each one of these incursions is Chad Summers.

[54:23] Susan Blackwell: Your boy Chad.

[54:24] Laura Camien: That's right.

[54:25] Susan Blackwell: And while everyone is away, he continues armed with his shovel, and he just can't help himself.

[54:32] Laura Camien: He keeps probing.

[54:33] Laura Camien: He finds several different openings to what seem like more tunnels.

[54:40] Laura Camien: He finds artifacts like a 38 special bullet, which might date back to the 1920s, a whiskey barrel, a bracelet, metal urns, a bone fragment, and this freaking huge vault chamber.

[54:56] Susan Blackwell: So right about this time, wouldn't you know?

[54:59] Laura Camien: One more thing.

[55:01] Susan Blackwell: Chad Summers and Hope break up.

[55:04] Laura Camien: No.

[55:05] Susan Blackwell: Oh no, this is bad.

[55:06] Laura Camien: I know this is bad.

[55:08] Susan Blackwell: This is the worst.

[55:09] Laura Camien: The strain of all of this has done such a number on their relationship.

[55:14] Susan Blackwell: They cannot move forward.

[55:15] Laura Camien: Oh no.

[55:16] Susan Blackwell: The enormity of it all, not knowing how to proceed.

[55:20] Laura Camien: She wants him to get a job.

[55:22] Susan Blackwell: He feels like this is his job.

[55:25] Laura Camien: It just becomes too much to bear.

[55:27] Susan Blackwell: So they break up.

[55:28] Laura Camien: On a silver platter, I'm telling you, on a silver platter.

[55:31] Susan Blackwell: Right?

[55:32] Laura Camien: I mean, it would write itself.

[55:35] Susan Blackwell: So when his truck breaks down, he doesn't have the $2,500 it'll take to fix it.

[55:41] Laura Camien: Amazing.

[55:42] Susan Blackwell: He lives in a tent or a tarp shelter that he made by the dig site.

[55:47] Laura Camien: Yeah, I was gonna say, does he live down in that hole?

[55:49] Susan Blackwell: Almost.

[55:50] Laura Camien: He lives right beside it.

[55:51] Susan Blackwell: It's got electricity, it's got a good tarp.

[55:54] Laura Camien: Right?

[55:54] Susan Blackwell: He's there with no vehicle, no cell service on his phone.

[55:58] Laura Camien: He said in this article, at the age of 43, here I sit, homeless, no vehicle, in worse shape now than I was when this project started.

[56:09] Susan Blackwell: You know what that sounds like.

[56:11] Laura Camien: What?

[56:12] Susan Blackwell: It sounds like the dark night of the soul before things take a turn.

[56:17] Laura Camien: Well, it gets darker before the dawn, Susan.

[56:22] Susan Blackwell: This gets interesting to me in terms of story development because this is all about how your main character responds to things.

[56:29] Laura Camien: And like it or not, as much as we may love our main character, sometimes they don't respond in the best way.

[56:35] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[56:35] Laura Camien: Like sometimes their back is up against the wall and they respond in ways that don't benefit themselves, right?

[56:43] Susan Blackwell: People often act against their own best interest.

[56:48] Laura Camien: It's frustrating, but it's true.

[56:49] Susan Blackwell: What's he do?

[56:51] Laura Camien: Well, in this case, according to Popular Mechanics, he has responded to the feel of the wall on his back by pushing everyone else away.

[57:01] Susan Blackwell: He lashes out at Gettler repeatedly.

[57:04] Laura Camien: Gettler, this guy who has come to help him.

[57:07] Susan Blackwell: He's a complicated soul.

[57:09] Laura Camien: He was raised with violence and you know.

[57:12] Susan Blackwell: And he's under pressure.

[57:14] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[57:14] Susan Blackwell: So he lashes out at Gettler over an array of issues.

[57:18] Laura Camien: He believes that Gettler has at times taken credit for his discoveries and exerted undue control over the project.

[57:27] Susan Blackwell: For months, they were locked in a disagreement over a fee that they would be paid by a TV production company.

[57:34] Laura Camien: Most of all, Summers is upset that Gettler is choosing a quote conventional livelihood over working in the dirt alongside him, saying that he lacks the grit or determination, or let me put it plainly, the hunger.

[57:51] Susan Blackwell: Now that doesn't really seem fair because Gettler has invested a lot into the project.

[57:57] Laura Camien: He's not getting paid.

[57:58] Susan Blackwell: He's investing his own money and his own time and his own resources and his own connections to TV companies and production companies.

[58:07] Laura Camien: And now he has to help Summers keep his shit together, frankly.

[58:13] Susan Blackwell: And if that doesn't also describe the creative process and collaborations, I don't know what does.

[58:19] Laura Camien: Right?

[58:19] Susan Blackwell: You have to tend to the relationship as much as you tend to the project itself.

[58:24] Laura Camien: You know, so that you don't get like three-quarters of the way through it only to have the pack eat its own.

[58:31] Susan Blackwell: And that can happen just because of stress and because people don't know what's happening inside of them and they don't know how to handle it.

[58:39] Laura Camien: Plus the high stakes of a room full of gold bars.

[58:39] Susan Blackwell: A room full of gold bars.

[58:44] Laura Camien: The possibility of success and having when you haven't had your whole life.

[58:50] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[58:50] Laura Camien: I'm sure he's living in fear that it's gonna get scooped up and taken away from him.

[58:54] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah, especially now that he's broken up with uh broken up with Hope.

[58:58] Laura Camien: Oh, come on, broken up with Hope.

[58:59] Susan Blackwell: Her name is Hope for God's sakes.

[59:02] Laura Camien: Her name is Hope.

[59:03] Susan Blackwell: Friends, the stamp screenplay writes itself.

[59:06] Laura Camien: He has dug himself a hole.

[59:08] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god.

[59:09] Laura Camien: And now must get out of it.

[59:11] Susan Blackwell: Can we talk about like metaphors?

[59:14] Laura Camien: People, please, someone write us and tell us that you're writing the screenplay.

[59:18] Susan Blackwell: I'm dying to know.

[59:20] Laura Camien: Okay.

[59:20] Susan Blackwell: So Gettler and Summers eventually move through this, possibly buoyed by their shared passion for this project.

[59:28] Laura Camien: I mean, if this really is Jesse James's gold or the Knights of the Golden Circle's gold.

[59:34] Susan Blackwell: If they prove that Jesse James really did fake his death, they would be cracking open 200-year-old history here.

[59:43] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[59:43] Susan Blackwell: Like legit.

[59:44] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[59:45] Susan Blackwell: In 2022, Summers and Gettler signed on with Mark Wahlberg's production company to pitch a television series that will record the discovery.

[59:55] Laura Camien: Okay.

[59:56] Susan Blackwell: But in order for it to come to fruition, they need a network or a streaming platform to agree to fund it.

[1:00:03] Laura Camien: So in the meantime, Summers describes the situation as in limbo.

[1:00:09] Susan Blackwell: He is entirely consumed by and fixated on the hole.

[1:00:15] Laura Camien: The hole and his life are in limbo.

[1:00:19] Susan Blackwell: Right?

[1:00:20] Laura Camien: This is the metaphor about this is your main character.

[1:00:24] Susan Blackwell: They dug their own hole.

[1:00:26] Laura Camien: They are stuck in it now.

[1:00:27] Susan Blackwell: And the big question is whether or not they're gonna climb out of it.

[1:00:34] Laura Camien: Is that where we're leaving it?

[1:00:36] Susan Blackwell: Popular Mechanics summed up the article by saying something is down there.

[1:00:42] Laura Camien: There is too much scientific evidence now.

[1:00:45] Susan Blackwell: It like you cannot deny it.

[1:00:48] Laura Camien: The evidence is there, and the truth about what lies inside that Ohio hillside will emerge possibly later this year, until then Summers promises to suppress his urge to claw deeper into the earth.

[1:01:05] Susan Blackwell: But in every other way, he'll remain down in that hole until the last shovel full of dirt has been turned over.

[1:01:14] Laura Camien: Are you kidding me?

[1:01:17] Susan Blackwell: I'm not kidding you.

[1:01:18] Laura Camien: I'm sorry to leave it there.

[1:01:20] Susan Blackwell: My God, I feel like this is gonna, we're gonna get like some Forrest Fenn treasure updates.

[1:01:28] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:01:29] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:01:30] Laura Camien: And by the way, sidebar on that, you know, I read that book that the guy wrote about the treasure hunt and the people who did Forrest Fenn's treasure hunt and who found it.

[1:01:42] Susan Blackwell: I read the whole book, Suze.

[1:01:44] Laura Camien: I was so excited I was gonna spark you back.

[1:01:46] Susan Blackwell: And I was literally like, there is not enough sparky stuff here to spark you back.

[1:01:54] Laura Camien: Oh wow.

[1:01:55] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I was disappointed.

[1:01:58] Laura Camien: The fact of the matter is, we love the magic trick.

[1:02:03] Susan Blackwell: Yes, we love the illusion, and once we know if it's revealed to us how it's done, yeah, it's like, oh.

[1:02:11] Laura Camien: Oh, well, I should have said that.

[1:02:13] Susan Blackwell: This book didn't get to tell that story.

[1:02:16] Laura Camien: I'm sure there's still a story coming someday because the winner wants to be anonymous, or not the winner, the person who found that wants to be anonymous.

[1:02:26] Susan Blackwell: So they may or may not ever want to reveal how in fact they cracked the code.

[1:02:35] Laura Camien: But that's not the case here.

[1:02:37] Susan Blackwell: Summers, Gettler, all these people are very accustomed to eyes on this project.

[1:02:43] Laura Camien: They invited media in along the way.

[1:02:46] Susan Blackwell: How much do you want to bet?

[1:02:48] Laura Camien: Like Chad Summers has thought about just fucking throwing some Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote dynamite down that hole to like blow a hole in whatever that thing is.

[1:03:00] Susan Blackwell: I'm sure he's obsessed with it.

[1:03:02] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[1:03:04] Susan Blackwell: I'm obsessed with it, Chad.

[1:03:05] Laura Camien: I'm sure of it.

[1:03:06] Susan Blackwell: How do you not like stand on top of this vault?

[1:03:10] Laura Camien: Being like, I must get in here.

[1:03:13] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[1:03:14] Laura Camien: So I'm fascinated.

[1:03:16] Susan Blackwell: I just want to give it up for the person who wrote that story.

[1:03:19] Laura Camien: And may I say this?

[1:03:22] Susan Blackwell: I did not tell the story in as good a way as David Howard did.

[1:03:30] Laura Camien: Because I intentionally, I didn't want, I mean, I wanted to just get on here and read you that article.

[1:03:34] Susan Blackwell: Absolutely.

[1:03:35] Laura Camien: Because it was just like, well, this is amazing.

[1:03:38] Susan Blackwell: Well done, David Howard.

[1:03:40] Laura Camien: But he doesn't tell it in a chronological way.

[1:03:43] Susan Blackwell: Oh yeah.

[1:03:44] Laura Camien: It's really interesting.

[1:03:45] Susan Blackwell: He keeps popping back and forth.

[1:03:47] Laura Camien: And I tried to like parse the information so we understood who we're talking about and go in order.

[1:03:54] Susan Blackwell: But David, it's very entertaining.

[1:03:57] Laura Camien: And if David Howard doesn't have the, I mean, it's probably David Howard you need to get the screenplay rights to if you wanted to follow his article.

[1:04:05] Susan Blackwell: But the thing is, the thing that makes it interesting, Suze, is that, like I said, they invited lots of media in.

[1:04:12] Laura Camien: So other media wrote the equivalent of this story.

[1:04:16] Susan Blackwell: But not as well.

[1:04:16] Laura Camien: With different writers in different ways as well.

[1:04:19] Susan Blackwell: So you could maybe get your hands on the rights of any one of those stories.

[1:04:24] Laura Camien: Or you got to get some life rights from Chad Summers.

[1:04:26] Susan Blackwell: So many what do we make of it's on this one, in addition to just like a smoke and hot screenplay.

[1:04:32] Laura Camien: It took everything within my power not to interrupt you at several occasions because as you told the story, I was like, oh, that's like it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world.

[1:04:42] Susan Blackwell: The W trees.

[1:04:43] Laura Camien: That is a that's a feature of that movie.

[1:04:45] Susan Blackwell: There's there's a There Will Be Blood element to Chad being down in that hole and digging that stuff up.

[1:04:52] Laura Camien: I'm curious.

[1:04:53] Susan Blackwell: Who do you like for casting in the role of Chad and Hope?

[1:04:58] Laura Camien: Who are you picturing?

[1:04:59] Susan Blackwell: You know what? I didn't even get that far, Suze.

[1:05:02] Laura Camien: How about like Austin Butler?

[1:05:04] Susan Blackwell: He might be a little young because Chad is in his 40s by the time.

[1:05:08] Laura Camien: Chad's now 44.

[1:05:09] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I mean a Tom Hardy or a like um could be a Brad Pitt.

[1:05:15] Laura Camien: Brad's a little bit older.

[1:05:16] Susan Blackwell: I think Brad could be Gettler.

[1:05:18] Laura Camien: Oh, is that the same?

[1:05:18] Susan Blackwell: I don't know what Gettler looks like, but he could be.

[1:05:21] Laura Camien: He's got that Indiana Jones, like I've been through all of this.

[1:05:25] Susan Blackwell: I know.

[1:05:25] Laura Camien: How about Julia Garner for Hope Bowser?

[1:05:28] Susan Blackwell: Well, also young, I think.

[1:05:30] Laura Camien: Well, maybe the yeah, that's how it goes in Hollywood.

[1:05:33] Susan Blackwell: This is so good.

[1:05:34] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:05:35] Susan Blackwell: Another what are we doing?

[1:05:36] Laura Camien: She would be amazing.

[1:05:36] Susan Blackwell: She's amazing.

[1:05:41] Laura Camien: I mean, if the articles are this good.

[1:05:43] Susan Blackwell: And it's got all of that mechanical stuff, which he loves.

[1:05:46] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:05:46] Susan Blackwell: Because that's his special interest.

[1:05:47] Laura Camien: Laura, what a spark.

[1:05:49] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I'm so happy you like it.

[1:05:50] Laura Camien: What a cliffhanger.

[1:05:52] Susan Blackwell: Holy fucking shit.

[1:05:54] Laura Camien: And maybe we'll be we'll all be watching the show when it comes on.

[1:05:58] Susan Blackwell: Hopefully, Netflix or someone picks it up.

[1:06:00] Laura Camien: And also, I forgot the last one we make of it.

[1:06:03] Susan Blackwell: My new punk band, Knuckle Boom.

[1:06:07] Laura Camien: I guess that's it.

[1:06:08] Susan Blackwell: Can we be the Knuckle Boomers?

[1:06:10] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:06:11] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[1:06:12] Laura Camien: Maybe the Knuckle Boomers are our fans.

[1:06:14] Susan Blackwell: How about that?

[1:06:15] Laura Camien: Oh the band is Knuckle Boom.

[1:06:17] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[1:06:17] Laura Camien: Looks great on a t-shirt.

[1:06:19] Susan Blackwell: Knuckle Boomers are the fans.

[1:06:21] Laura Camien: It's gonna be hot.

[1:06:22] Susan Blackwell: Love it.

[1:06:23] Laura Camien: This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape people.

[1:06:28] Susan Blackwell: And as always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file.

[1:06:32] Laura Camien: Come on.

[1:06:33] Susan Blackwell: If there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to bring your creative ideas to life, email us at thesparkfile@gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com.

[1:06:46] Laura Camien: We will even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission.

[1:06:51] Susan Blackwell: First, you have to share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

[1:06:55] Laura Camien: You can follow us on social at The Spark File and be sure to subscribe, rate, and I don't know, five-star review this podcast.

[1:07:03] Susan Blackwell: It really does help other listeners to find us.

[1:07:05] Laura Camien: Also, if you liked this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love.

[1:07:09] Susan Blackwell: And if you didn't like it, we invite you to just dig a 30-foot hole into the earth.

[1:07:13] Laura Camien: Put your feelings down in there.

[1:07:14] Susan Blackwell: Take an extension cord and put your feelings down in there.

[1:07:17] Laura Camien: Get yourself a guitar to keep the rain off of you.

[1:07:22] Susan Blackwell: On the other hand, if something lights you up and gets your creative sparks playing, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door.

[1:07:32] Laura Camien: It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

[1:07:37] Susan Blackwell: You know, you got to take it and make it.

[1:07:41] Laura Camien: Put your feelings down there in that hole.

[1:07:43] Susan Blackwell: Way down there, 30 feet down.

[1:07:47] Laura Camien: We're not bumped into something that inspires me.

[1:07:53] Susan Blackwell: I dump it in the spark files.

[1:07:56] Laura Camien: Spark could be something that I want to pick.

[1:08:00] Susan Blackwell: Or how I want to be.

[1:08:02] Laura Camien: I'll pump it in the spark files.

[1:08:07] Susan Blackwell: I'll jump into my spark files.

[1:08:12] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark files.