Lost Dutchman Days

Grandstands at Lost Dutchman and Tomahawk

The main gates open at nine in the morning at the rodeo grounds where Lost Dutchman Boulevard meets Tomahawk Road. Admission to the event center is two dollars, cash, and parking is free. Part of the gate goes to the Apache Junction Little League, whose players help work the lot. Inside are more than thirty carnival rides run by Browns Amusements, over a hundred food and vendor booths, and a free stage where local bands play through the day under a sound man named Rodney Wayne. “The fairgrounds of the festival sit in the shadow of the Superstition Mountains where the mine supposedly is hidden,” Denny Walter, then the event’s chairman, told the East Valley Tribune in 2017.

At 1:30 each afternoon, Friday through Sunday, the rodeo begins in front of shaded grandstands. It is sanctioned by the Grand Canyon Pro Rodeo Association, with stock from W/A Stock Contracting. The organizers’ pages list bareback and saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, calf or tie-down roping, team roping, ladies’ breakaway roping, barrel racing, and bull riding. The schedule page leaves team roping out. Bull riding always comes last. A performance runs about two and a half hours and ends around four. Seating is general and first-come. Only a set number of tickets is sold for each day, and they are not sold online. The event goes on rain or shine, and no money is refunded, since the proceeds go to local children’s organizations.

The Saturday seats go first. In 2026 the adult Saturday presale had sold out by February 12. On the day itself, February 28, the committee posted that about 300 tickets remained at the gate. By 12:40 there were 100. The next posting read “SOLD OUT.”

Other acts have filled the arena over the years. The 2017 rodeo ended its Sunday with “Mutton Bustin’,” in which thirty children rode and raced sheep. The 2026 program brought the trick rider Bella Da Costa. The historian Tom Kollenborn’s list for 2017 included a polka contest, gold panning, and a Senior Pro Rodeo. On Sunday morning the carnival stage holds Cowboy Church. In 2027 it is set for ten to eleven with Steve Edwards and the Broken Chair Band. The crowning of Miss Lost Dutchman Days also takes place in the event center. Dogs are allowed on a leash. Visitors who bring one are asked to leave if it causes trouble.

Brats, a dance, and a parade on Apache Trail

Some of the weekend happens away from the grounds. On the Thursday, Elks Lodge #2349 holds a Bratwurst & Beer Party from noon to eight, with Johnsonville bratwursts, drinks, and free live music, and the proceeds go to youth charities. The lodge stands at Lost Dutchman (Brown Road) and Highway 88. On Friday night it hosts the Rodeo Dance from seven to eleven. The dance is non-smoking, open only to those 21 and older, and costs ten dollars at the door. The 2027 lineup names the Crossroad Band.

The parade starts at nine on Saturday morning. The Apache Junction Chamber of Commerce runs it, and the organizers call it one of the longest-running parades in Arizona. It travels Apache Trail from Phelps, just west of Idaho, west to Ironwood, and then turns back, so people on either curb see it twice. The organizers advise bringing a lawn chair. The 2027 edition, the 63rd, is set for February 26 through 28, with the parade on February 27.

A volunteer committee puts on the weekend. Sherry Coker is its chairman, and its motto is “Putting Smiles on Kid’s Faces.” The committee’s season begins weeks before February, with a royalty pageant and a kick-off dinner at the Elks. The dinner introduces the year’s queens, the new honorary Dutchman, and the Heritage Award winner. A golf tournament each January honors the memory of Hux Russell. The organizers’ attendance figures differ: one page gives 25,000 and up a year, and another gives 30,000. Walter put the committee’s aim plainly in 2017: “We want to keep Lost Dutchman Days small and traditional. We focus on trying to improve it every year.”

A three-inch notice in the Apache Sentinel

The event began with a notice three inches long in the November 27, 1964 issue of the Apache Sentinel. In it the Chamber of Commerce told Apache Junction that the first Lost Dutchman Days would be held on January 23. The Cowboy Lifestyle Network says that first edition went by Lost Dutchman “Day,” singular, and it lasted one day. C. A. Rodgers ran a free pancake breakfast. Lloyd Larsen ran an art show, and Jack Weaver headed the carnival committee. Ken Miller was “honcho” of a “Horse Picnic,” and the Jaycees cooked a barbeque. Jeanette Lake organized the dance that closed the day.

Rodeo looked different that winter. The Cowboy Lifestyle Network lists the popular events of 1964 as timed cowhide drags, boots-and-saddle partnership races, flag and potato races, and ribbon races. In a ribbon race, two horses were tied together at the saddle horns with a 7- or 8-foot ribbon and run through a barrel course without breaking it.

Kollenborn, writing in 2017, credited the event’s start in 1965 to the guidance and support of a Colonel Rodgers. He wrote that Lulu Luebben gave it its name and that her husband, Roy, became the first officially elected Lost Dutchman. “If I recalled correctly,” he added, the Chamber of Commerce ran it every year after 1965. For years a sheriff’s posse rodeo, a parade, and a queen contest were held on their own in February, and sometimes in March. The organizers’ history says these came together in 1971, and that is when “Lost Dutchman Days, as most people know it today,” was born. Since then the rodeo has used several arenas, the parade has used several streets, and the dance has moved from place to place. Kollenborn also credited the City of Apache Junction with support since it incorporated in 1978.

The Dutchman, the Dons, and a burro

The mine in the name belonged to Jacob Waltz, an old prospector who died in Phoenix on Sunday, October 25, 1891. Kollenborn wrote that his death began a long run of mystery and cryptic clues about a rich gold mine east of Apache Junction. “Today some believe Waltz had a rich gold mine and others claimed it to be just a fable,” he wrote. Of the stories the old-timers told, he judged, “Most are fiction, but some are true.” The organizers’ history page tells darker lore. It says dozens of people who went looking for the mine vanished without a trace, and it asks whether the answer is, as the Apache Indians say, that a “Thunder God” protects the mine and brings death to anyone who tries to take from it.

According to Kollenborn, the Phoenix Dons Club was the first large group to draw on that interest. The club is now the Dons of Arizona. It held its first Superstition Mountain Trek in 1934 and built the Lost Dutchman Monument in Apache Junction in 1938. Fifty years later, on February 28, 1988, almost 400 dignitaries and citizens rededicated the monument, and the governor of Arizona gave the keynote. The Lions Club started the Apache Junction Burro Derby in 1958, and it drew thousands each winter. Between 1960 and 1963, Kollenborn wrote, Hollywood stars filming at Apache Land often took part. The organizers say many people wrongly believe Lost Dutchman Days grew out of the Burro Derby. In their account it combines several events, among them the Sheriff’s Posse rodeo and parade. On October 4, 2011, the city dedicated a bronze statue of a prospector and burro at City Hall. Kollenborn wrote that the pair had become the city’s emblem.

Kollenborn once gave directions to the monument to an old-timer who no longer recognized the grown-up town. The man had been photographed in front of it in 1939. “When I had that picture taken, there was nothing between the monument and Superstition Mountain,” he said. When Kollenborn told him about Lost Dutchman Days, he answered: “you mean the old prospector and burro has an event named after them. It sure pays to hunt gold in these hills friend.”