James Copeland gave Jesse James and Billy the Kid a good run for their place in crime history. Copeland and partners McGrath and Wages amassed $30,000 in gold by 1845 (equal to nearly $1,000,000 today). They buried their gold in the Catahoula Swamp in central Hancock County and made a map. Later, during a gunfight to avenge the deaths of his partners, Copeland lost the map. Copeland went into hiding. The gold was eventually discovered and stolen. The Mobile newspapers carried accounts of the gold being found, but after a few generations, it was a better story for the gold to still be somewhere in the swamp and a tale of lost treasure was born.
