Font Size: Default font size Larger font size  Posted: Sunday,
February 9, 2003 12:00 am | Updated: 7:47 am, Thu Mar 24, 2011.
"Everybody thinks I'm crazy," says Catalina prospector William
"Flint" Carter, "and if I wasn't so busy laughing at that I'd
agree with them."  Crazy or not, few question his determination
when it comes to chasing down the centuries-old legend of the
lost Escalante Mine, or the Mine with the Iron Door, supposedly
covered up by expelled Jesuit priests more than 200 years ago.
For the past 30 years Carter, a native of Danville, Ill., has
been roaming the Santa Catalina Mountains chasing the legend of
what has been described as the most extensively hunted lost mine
in North America. Always seemingly on the verge of discovery,
Carter isn't the first and most likely won't be the last to do
so.  If it weren't for being allowed to stay in the home he's
living in in exchange for maintaining it and taking advantage of
the free hot dogs he gets that have been turning on the local
fast food ro