History & local legend
A treasure legend places stolen bank money somewhere within sight of Kinzua Bridge near Mount Jewett. In the story, a man robbed an Emporium bank in 1893 and fled north into the woods around the viaduct.
Searchers found him several days later, sick and delirious. Before he died, he said he had buried the money in glass jars beneath a triangular rock. The bridge could be seen from the hiding place, but he gave no clearer directions.
Writer Lou Bernard described taking his children to look for the rock in a 2018 Pennsylvania Wilds article. On the ground, the clue proved less helpful than it sounded: the bridge was visible over a wide area, and triangular rocks were everywhere. Bernard and his family left without finding the jars.
Sources
- Lou Bernard, The Kinzua Bridge Treasure, Pennsylvania Wilds, local account and first-person family search
- The Pennsylvania Rambler, The Lost Treasure of Kinzua, separate firsthand account of a search with a local storyteller
- Pennsylvania DCNR, Kinzua Bridge State Park and visitor information
- OpenStreetMap, observation deck on the surviving viaduct
