![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-2.jpg\")
The Comanche water tower.Photograph by Chad Wadsworth<\/p>\n
A closer perusal reveals some incongruous features. Ciphers. Poems. Musical notes. According to the book\u2019s creators, a semiretired Fort Worth tax accountant named K\u2009C Wright and his 94-year-old mother, Liz, this mysterious volume contains everything you need to find the medallion. A note on the inside cover informs readers that \u201call places, pictures, and ideas within SeekTexas have equal value. They are all clues\u2014for example, the Alamo.\u201d<\/p>\n
To enter the hunt, you must purchase the $70 book and register it on SeekTexas.com. Whoever finds the medallion will win eleven gold coins and $5,000 in cash, supplemented by $5 for every book sold. If the medallion isn\u2019t found by June 2028, the Wrights will give all the money to the Remember the Alamo Foundation. The value of the treasure fluctuates with the price of gold\u2014as of the deadline for this story, it had climbed to over $72,000.<\/p>\n
The Jollys purchased the book last summer after Aimee saw a Facebook Reel about the treasure. Launched in June, the hunt had already attracted a small but passionate group of searchers. \u201cI was super excited,\u201d she told me. \u201cI opened the book and was like, \u2018This is fun!\u2019 And then I got confused, and I went crazy. I thought, \u2018This is ridiculous. This can\u2019t be real.\u2019\u200a\u201d Discouraged by the difficulty of the puzzles, she and John set the book aside for a few weeks, but the possibility of hidden treasure lingered in their imaginations. They decided to give it another shot.<\/p>\n
The Jollys identified one puzzle that appears early in the book, a series of dots and dashes, as Morse code. Translated, it reads: \u201cIt will be in plain view on level land.\u201d This clue spurred a trip to the High Plains towns of Plainview and Levelland, each of which is home to one of sculptor Charles A. Smith\u2019s<\/a> 22-foot-high steel arrows; the series marks sites associated with Quanah Parker, the great Comanche chief<\/a>. SeekTexas devotes a full spread to Smith\u2019s project. The Jollys were searching near one of the sculptures when a truck pulled in behind them. \u201cThis girl comes up to me and goes, \u2018Are you doing the SeekTexas treasure hunt?\u2019\u200a\u201d Aimee recalled. \u201cWe stood around and talked about things, but nobody gave away any clues.\u201d<\/p>\n Next they considered a cryptogram known as a pigpen cipher, an eleven-by-eleven grid containing a series of runic symbols. It baffled the Jollys. \u201cWe had no clue,\u201d Aimee said. They weren\u2019t alone. Last fall, after fielding months of complaints that the puzzle was too hard, KC provided the key to the cipher on Facebook.<\/p>\n But that solution turned out to be yet another riddle: \u201cIf you listen closely, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Hear it. Carpe diem. Seize the day. Make your life extraordinary.\u201d It\u2019s a quote from Dead Poets Society<\/a>, a 1989 Robin Williams movie without any obvious In the Tractor Supply parking lot, Aimee took out a leather journal, bristling with colored tabs, where she keeps track of potential hiding spots. She has compiled a complete list of place names that appear in SeekTexas, cross-referenced by font (italicized or bolded) and number of appearances in the book. John, a taciturn man with close-cropped hair and a long beard, let his wife do most of the talking. He unfolded a Texas map that the couple uses to track their dozen or so road trips. The routes, marked in yellow highlighter, crisscrossed the state like a spiderweb.<\/p>\n The Jollys had been eyeing Comanche for some time. Aimee opened the book to a full-page spread about Comanche Nation. There was a list of Comanche words, a map of Comanche territory circa 1875, and a sepia photograph of Chief Parker. \u201cThe Comanches are in here a lot,\u201d she said. \u201cComanche just kept coming back in my head, coming back. I thought, well, it\u2019s in the book, and we\u2019ve never really checked it out thoroughly.\u201d<\/p>\n After carefully examining satellite photographs of the town on Google Maps, the Jollys had identified two locations where they believed the medallion could be hidden. Now it was time to put their theories to the test. I climbed into the back seat of their well-used pickup, and we rumbled out of the parking lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n The hunt was on.\u00a0<\/p>\n KC\u00a0 Wright, an energetic, fast-talking polymath who looks at least a decade younger than his 66 years, has always been fascinated by hidden treasure. One of his earliest memories is of his father reading to him from Treasure Island<\/a>. As a precocious child growing up in Oklahoma City, he devoured Mark Twain\u2019s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer<\/a>, with its tale of Tom and Huck Finn finding a cache of stolen gold, and Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s \u201cThe Gold-Bug,\u201d in which a fortune hunter must decode a cipher that reveals the location of buried loot. \u201cI always wanted to be on a boat, going to an island with a treasure map,\u201d KC told me.<\/p>\n KC learned the rudiments of cryptography from working on crossword puzzles and the Jumble with his mother, a speech therapist. \u201cShe taught me how to do that at a super young age,\u201d he recalled. Liz bought Masquerade<\/a>, a 1979 book by English artist Kit Williams that contained visual clues to the location of a buried golden hare. Mother and son spent years trying to solve the puzzle until someone found the treasure in the United Kingdom, in 1982. On a recent video call, they showed me their copy of the book, filled with handwritten notes.<\/p>\n After graduating from Oklahoma City University and becoming a certified public accountant, KC moved to Texas to take a job at the firm Arthur Young & Co. He embraced the state with the zeal of a convert, immersing himself in historical research and amassing an impressive library. He was particularly fascinated by Quanah Parker and the Comanches<\/a>. A few years ago, he and his wife decided to visit all 254 of the state\u2019s historic county courthouses. Most of the photographs in SeekTexas were taken during those trips.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would pull off the road at every historical marker we could find,\u201d KC recalled. \u201cIn Archer City there\u2019s a plaque that tells you Jesse James\u2019s sister lived down the road, and that\u2019s where he would hide out. Or, you know, there\u2019s a marker saying there was a gunfight on the spot where you\u2019re standing. There are all of these stories.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, KC\u2019s father, a retired petroleum geologist still living in Oklahoma, died at 89. Shortly afterward, Liz moved to Fort Worth to be near her son. Even in her nineties, she remained a dedicated puzzle solver. After navigating a six-week gauntlet of word game challenges and Zoom interviews, she and KC were selected to compete as a team during Wheel of Fortune\u2019s recurring \u201cHome for the Holidays\u201d week.<\/p>\n In September 2023 the Wrights flew to Los Angeles to film their episode<\/a>. KC had spent weeks honing his puzzle-solving skills, while his mother took a more relaxed approach. \u201cShe was like, \u2018Eh, whatever,\u2019\u200a\u201d he told me. But when the game began, it was Liz who solved most of the puzzles. She correctly guessed the bonus-round answer, \u201cDrizzled Honey,\u201d with just seven letters revealed. Host Pat Sajak was visibly impressed. The Wrights won $65,000 and a Caribbean vacation. Liz later appeared on Good Morning America with Vanna White. \u201cI will never forget this episode,\u201d White told Liz. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll never forget you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Over a bottle of Riesling in Antigua, KC and Liz decided to use most of their winnings to fulfill a dream: launching their own treasure hunt. \u201cWe were comfortable,\u201d KC explained. \u201cWe considered it free money, so we started thinking, well, let\u2019s just give it back.\u201d They took inspiration from Masquerade, as well as from the notorious Forrest Fenn treasure hunt.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2010, Fenn, a wealthy, Texas-born New Mexico art dealer, published a cryptic poem containing clues that he said would lead readers to a treasure chest he had buried somewhere in the mountains north of Santa Fe. Inside the chest was around $1 million in gold nuggets, rare coins, jewelry, and other valuables. The hunt became an international phenomenon, drawing thousands of treasure seekers into the wilderness. The booty was finally claimed in 2020 by a Michigan medical student. Netflix released a documentary series<\/a> about the hunt last year.<\/p>\n KC and Liz admired Fenn, but they also saw his hunt as a cautionary tale. At least five people died in the pursuit, several after getting lost in the mountains. Others broke federal laws by digging in national parks. For many the search became an obsession, consuming years of their lives, ruining relationships, and emptying bank accounts. Fenn was stalked by deranged treasure hunters and pressured by law enforcement to end the hunt to avoid further loss of life. (He declined.) \u201cIt was just a stampede,\u201d KC said. \u201cYou could dig anywhere; you could do anything. I felt like it didn\u2019t have love or protection for things that are sacred. It was every person for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n To prevent someone from accidentally stumbling upon the gold, KC decided to hide a cheap medallion. On its reverse side is one final puzzle\u2014solvable only by someone with the SeekTexas book\u2014that entitles the finder to the actual treasure.\u00a0<\/p>\n KC already had a hiding spot in mind, an out-of-the-way place that holds personal significance. He devised the puzzles, and Liz modified some. \u201cI\u2019ve tried to keep it simple enough for anyone to participate, yet interesting enough for a lot of people to want to participate,\u201d she told me. A graphic designer friend of KC\u2019s helped him create the book, and the Wrights hired a custom publisher to print four thousand copies. They began advertising the hunt on Facebook early last year. It quickly attracted attention from treasure seekers across the country, including many veterans of the Fenn search.<\/p>\n Hoping to avoid Fenn\u2019s mistakes, the Wrights set strict parameters for the SeekTexas hunt. A note on the inside cover informs readers that the The hockey-puck-size medallion is ensconced inside an eight-by-five-inch weatherproof box, which is coated in protective black wax and stamped with an X. Whoever finds the medallion and solves the final puzzle will gain access to the gold coins, which are being held in a safe-deposit box at First Capital Bank in the town of Quanah, and a savings account with the cash portion of the prize.<\/p>\n The true purpose of the treasure hunt, KC says, is to foster an appreciation of Texas by encouraging participants to explore its forgotten corners. \u201cOur tagline is \u2018Texans Bringing Texas to the World,\u2019\u200a\u201d he told me. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to get people off the interstates and into these small towns. That\u2019s where our heritage lies.\u201d<\/p>\n To promote the book, KC has hosted public roundtables in Fort Worth, Seguin, and Nacogdoches, drawing several dozen treasure seekers. After a short presentation about how he designed the hunt, he takes questions from the audience\u2014although he doesn\u2019t always provide answers. At the Fredonia Brewery, in Nacogdoches, in November, KC declined to disclose the population of the county where the medallion is hidden, or whether the town has a one- or two-word name.<\/p>\n Some of the questions seemed like desperate shots in the dark. \u201cWhat was the weather like when you hid the medallion?\u201d (\u201cOvercast.\u201d) \u201cIf you were hanging out by the medallion at night, how would the stargazing be?\u201d (\u201cI\u2019m sure I could see the Big Dipper.\u201d) \u201cIs it hidden outside the Menger Hotel?\u201d (\u201cGo find out!\u201d)<\/p>\n During these sessions, KC has revealed that the medallion is hidden within a town or city\u2019s limits, that it\u2019s near a historical marker, and that the city and county are named somewhere in the book. Liz, who uses a walker to get around, can access it.<\/p>\n The roundtables are now on par with the book itself in the growing body of SeekTexas lore. Fans spend hours watching and rewatching videos of the events, which are available on SeekTexas 2025: Treasure Hunters Field Guide<\/a>, an unofficial Facebook page where searchers discuss clues and post photos from their reconnaissance trips.\u00a0<\/p>\n KC seems increasingly impatient to speed things along. In February he began sending a weekly email to registered book owners that reveals some additional information about the hiding spot. He may up that to twice a week if nobody finds the medallion in the final months before the 2028 deadline. He worries that without a steady stream of new clues, some searchers will get discouraged and drop out.<\/p>\n When it comes to the Wrights\u2019 goal of encouraging exploration of the state, the hunt has already succeeded. Michael Walton lives in Mustang, Oklahoma, and works for thirty days at a stretch near Kermit, in the West Texas oil patch. When he isn\u2019t monitoring a drilling rig, he\u2019s poring over SeekTexas. \u201cI have gone through the book a hundred times,\u201d he told me. \u201cI\u2019ve spent more than twelve hours a day at work reading the book and researching.\u201d He estimated that he\u2019s put more than 25,000 miles on his 2007 GMC Sierra pursuing various clues. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s not so much the excitement of, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m hoping to find this coin.\u2019 It\u2019s more the sense of adventure that\u2019s taken me to new places, small towns.\u201d<\/p>\n Walton had spent a day in Albany, a town of about two thousand residents northeast of Abilene that hosts an annual outdoor musical, Fort Griffin Fandangle<\/a>, about the area\u2019s first settlers. SeekTexas devotes two pages to the tradition. \u201cI met with a few of the older ladies, and they walked me around, gave me a brief history,\u201d he said. Walton didn\u2019t find any treasure, but he did discover the Old Jail Art Center<\/a>, a nineteenth-century prison that\u2019s been converted into an exhibition gallery.<\/p>\n For many, the hunt has turned into something like a second job. Rachel Parker, the county treasurer of Hill County, north of Waco, told me that she\u2019s visited more than sixty towns and cities looking for the medallion, often with her boyfriend and teenage son in tow. \u201cI was pretty much a history buff to begin with, but there are some new things I\u2019ve learned about,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, these little battles that you don\u2019t really home in on in high school or college.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Walton and Parker participated in the Fenn treasure hunt. Parker made a trip to the Rockies in search of the buried riches. \u201cIt was exhilarating,\u201d she recalled. \u201cEvery corner you turn, you\u2019re like, \u2018Is that it?\u2019 It kind of gets your mind off work and things going on in your life. The treasure hunt takes that stress away.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeking\u00a0hidden riches may count as a leisure activity, but it\u2019s also serious business for people like the Jollys. In Comanche their first stop was the county courthouse, which stands at the center of an old-fashioned town square lined with local restaurants and boutiques. A drab art moderne edifice built in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration, the building isn\u2019t much to look at compared with some of the state\u2019s grand nineteenth-century piles. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw that the building was partly encased in scaffolding. The Jollys decided that that ruled out the location. KC had divulged at his roundtables that the medallion wasn\u2019t likely to be accidentally disturbed during the three-year time span of the hunt.<\/p>\n At one of his Q&A sessions, KC revealed that he and his mother could smell hot dogs at the hiding spot. When the Jollys arrived at the courthouse, they began looking around. Restaurants? Check.<\/p>\n We climbed out of the pickup to explore the area on foot. Aimee and John made a beeline to a majestic live oak on the southwest corner of the square. Before coming to town, they had read up on the so-called Fleming Oak. According to a historical marker, a young man named Martin V. Fleming was camping nearby in 1854 when \u201chostile Indians rode through.\u201d Fleming saved himself by hiding behind the tree.<\/p>\n Today the Fleming Oak is ringed by a low wrought iron fence. A second historical marker details a nighttime Indian raid in 1861\u2014\u201cone of the boldest depredations in Texas history\u201d\u2014during which Indians stole nearly all of the town\u2019s horses. At dawn, a posse of men and boys under the command of Captain James Cunningham traveled 36 miles southwest to Brown\u2019s Creek, where they killed nineteen of the raiders.<\/p>\n Aimee and John walked slowly around the tree, looking for the wax-covered box. \u201cI feel like it will be in a spot like this,\u201d Aimee said. \u201cMaybe near a tree, or in a park. Something in nature.\u201d The couple was about to give up when they noticed a pair of bronzed statues on another corner. A life-size A closer examination of the area around the sculptures also proved fruitless. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of hiding locations around here,\u201d Aimee said with disappointment. \u201cIt would be too easy to find.\u201d<\/p>\n Our next stop was Comanche City Park, a forty-plus-acre recreational complex featuring picnic areas, baseball diamonds, and a public swimming pool. While scouting the city on Google Maps, Aimee and John had spotted a Texas-shaped flower bed, outlined in white limestone, on the bank of a creek running through the park. Now seeing the flower bed up close, they realized that someone would have to cross the creek to hide something there\u2014impossible for a nonagenarian using a walker.<\/p>\n We kept driving around the park, but the Jollys seemed resigned to another failed search. On the way back to the Tractor Supply, the couple reflected on their quest. They had spent months combing through the book, rewatching KC\u2019s town halls, taking trip after trip, and kept coming up short. Yet they didn\u2019t seem discouraged. \u201cI\u2019ll sit down later and take notes,\u201d Aimee said. \u201cMaybe think of new places to look.\u201d<\/p>\n Within a month they were back on the road, heading to Independence, a small community north of Brenham. They wanted to check out the cemetery where one of Sam Houston\u2019s sons was buried and a grocery store that looked a bit like the Alamo. \u201cThere were a lot of really interesting things,\u201d Aimee told me afterward. \u201cBut it didn\u2019t really pan out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At a certain point during the Forrest Fenn hunt, searchers had begun to question whether his treasure was real. Had Fenn just made the whole thing up as a publicity stunt? KC seems intent on assuring people that the medallion is out there. He set the 2028 deadline in hopes that his mother would still be alive when the treasure is found. \u201cShe wants to meet the winner,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n I asked the Wrights if they\u2019d be willing to give an exclusive clue to Texas Monthly readers. KC pondered the request for a moment, then offered to share a photograph of the hiding place. Shortly after hanging up, he texted the shot to me (see below). It showed a fallen oak leaf on a patch of barren ground, nestled against a small limestone crevice.<\/p>\n The medallion is still there. Yours for the taking. \u00a0<\/p>\n
connection to Texas. Was the medallion hidden near a whispering willow? Was there a Latin inscription in the vicinity? The Jollys racked their brains trying to make sense of the clue.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-1.jpg\")
John and Aimee Jolly treasure hunting in Comanche on February 20, 2026.Photograph by Chad Wadsworth<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-5.jpg\")
The SeekTexas book and replica medallion.Photograph by Chad Wadsworth<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-4.jpg\")
The Jollys in downtown Comanche. Photograph by Chad Wadsworth ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-3.jpg\")
Aimee Jolly searching near historical markers. Photograph by Chad Wadsworth <\/p>\n
treasure is \u201chidden and not buried\u201d and asks seekers to respect state parks and historical sites: \u201cDo not harm, dig, deface, or disgrace the legacy of any of these hallowed grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-6a.jpg\")
Liz and K\u200aC Wright in Fort Worth on February 19, 2026.Photograph by Chad Wadsworth<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-10.jpg\")
The box containing the medallion is coated in protective black wax and stamped with an X. Courtesy of KC Wright ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-7a.jpg\")
Keys to the safe-deposit box containing the treasure. Photograph by Chad Wadsworth <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-8.jpg\")
The Jollys reviewing clues to the medallion\u2019s location in their leather-bound journal.Photograph by Chad Wadsworth<\/p>\n
Comanche warrior, wearing a feather headdress and brandishing a spear, stood a few feet from a pensive-looking buffalo.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Treasure-Hunt-Seek-Texas-Fort-Worth-9.jpg\")
Courtesy of KC Wright Look Here <\/p>\n