The legend of the Blue Water Treasure Caves has circulated throughout North Alabama for decades. It started with the arrival of Cherokee Chief Doublehead to Blue Water Creek in the late 1700's. Despite warnings from other Cherokee chiefs, Doublehead set up his reservation in North Alabama from where he would launch raids into southern Tennessee. He would use the many miles of caves along Blue Water Creek to store the spoils of these attacks. It wasn't until Doublehead and other Cherokee Nation officials were invited to meet with then President George Washington that Doublehead would go from vicious marauder to landlord and entrepreneur. When Doublehead began selling Cherokee land to white settlers, he was assassinated by his own people and his treasure was lost. "Mountain" Tom Clark was the leader of the notorious Clifton Shebang, a gang that terrorized North Alabama and Southern Tennessee in the years following the Civil War. The Clifton Shebang, known as The Buggers to the citizens of Florence, AL, committed many crimes against both Union and Confederate sympathizers. The gang became infamous for their violence and ability to disappear into the rural countryside. Many believe that Tom Clark had discovered a series of interconnected caves, once used by Cherokee Chief Doublehead, to hide his take and gang along Blue Water Creek just east of Florence. These caves are said to have also held the vast fortune of silver that Chief Doublehead made selling Cherokee land to white settlers. For this, Chief Doublehead was murdered but his legend remained. In 1872, an angry mob took Tom Clark and two of his men and hung them behind the Masonic Lodge in Florence. The location of his gangs loot and hideout was thought to have been lost with Tom Clark. In 1881, The US Corps of Engineers began work on a canal near the mouth of Blue Water Creek. Rumors that the men had located a cave filled with loot had made its way throughout the south. Then on March 11, 1881, Alex Smith left the corps camp with $5000. He was robbed by three gunman who were later revealed to be William Ryan, Frank James and Jesse James. The legend of caves filled with gold, silver and currency has been told throughout North Alabama for decades. No one has been able to put all the clues together until now. With the help of modern technology and the discovery of a ancestral connection to a member of the Clifton Shebang has made the discovery of Tom Clark's Loot closer than ever.