Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1915 — MISSING MAN HOLDS KEY TO RICH MINES [ARTICLE]

MISSING MAN HOLDS KEY TO RICH MINES

Football Star Raises $39,000 to Purchase Diamond Land in South Africa—Wife Also Missing. Minneapolis, Minn.—A world wide March has been instituted for Joseph Myers, mining engineer and graduate of the State University of lowa, who is said to hold the key to the location of 1,100 acres of diamond mining land in South Africa. Dr. Fred C. Wheat of this city, a classmate of Meyers and one of. the large body of stockholders backing the project, has instituted the search. Meyers, a football star and former coach at the lowa College of Agriculture at Ames, disappeared from the Grand Hotel, San Francisco, July 5, 1910. Not a word has been heard from him in the four years since, and Dr. Wheat says he is convinced that someone obtained knoweldge of the information Meyers had and that he is a victim of foul play. With Meyers his wife disappeared also. She is believed to be with Meyers if he is alive. Dr. Wheat is certain that Meyers did not abscond with the $39,000 which he obtained from the stockholders* subscriptions. TWo incidents of the Good Samaritan nature form the prelude to the strange tale. Sandy McDonald, a miner, gave Myers a chart locating the diamondbearing land following Meyers’ kindness to him during an illness while the latter was in California. McDonald ■aid he obtained the papers from another Scotchman, also a South African miner, when the latter was on his deathbed and McDonald was making bis last moments comfortable. Meyers then investigated and his reports that the charts located valuable diamond land were verified. Dr. Wheat said. Then $30,000 was subscribed by lowa alumni and Meyers returned to South Africa to purchase the land. Simultaneously, diamond-bearing land was discovered only twelve miles away.

This raised the price of land, and In 1910 Meyers returned to raise more funds. He had obtained $9,000, Dr. Wheat said, when suddenly he disappeared. Just before the last word was received from Meyers from San Francisco he was preparing to return to South Africa to work on watersheds, buy title to the land from the British government so that the two-thirds ■hare, required when diamond mines are discovered, need not be paid, "I'am certain Meyers was on the square,” Dr. Wheat said. "We verified every statement he made. The papers are believed to be in a safety deposit vault in Chicago, but we have been unable L locate the bank. 1 *