Deep in the Florida Everglades, the site known as Fruita is believed to be the location of a long-vanished homestead and rough-and-tumble settlement that once served as the base of operations for one of early 20th-century Florida's most notorious outlaw families, the Ashleys. Today there is little visible above the dense subtropical vegetation — no standing structures, no signage, no obvious ruins — making it the kind of place where, as Gates put it on camera, you'd have to "look hard" to find any evidence of a town at all. According to Florida historians Steve Carr and Chessy Ricca, who guided Gates through the site, the Ashley homestead itself is believed to lie directly underfoot, preserved only in fragments beneath layers of soil and overgrowth. The site's remote Everglades setting, approximately near coordinates 27.08°N, 80.45°W along Florida's southeastern interior, means it remains largely inaccessible and unknown to the general public. Gates investigated it as part of a broader search for treasure rumored to be connected to John Ashley, a bank robber, bootlegger, and moonshiner whose legend looms large over South Florida criminal history.
Joe Ashley homesteads the area, establishing what would become known as the settlement of Fruita and the Ashley family base of operations
On January 9th, Sheriff Bob Baker's heavily armed deputies raid the Ashley homestead in the pre-dawn hours; a shootout ensues, and the home and moonshining operation are burned to the ground, effectively erasing Fruita from the landscape
Gates investigates the site with historians Steve Carr and Chessy Ricca during Expedition Unknown S10E10, "Chasing Everglades Treasure"
Florida historians Steve Carr and Chessy Ricca, who appeared on camera with Gates, believe they have relocated the lost footprint of Fruita — a settlement that largely disappeared from the historical record after the 1924 raid reduced it to ash and rubble. Carr pointed to the ceramic fragments the team found as direct archaeological evidence that a structure once stood at the site: "This place was burned to the ground. The dishes inside of course were crushed. There's archaeological evidence that the house existed and was here." That kind of material culture — broken ceramics, spent ammunition, industrial equipment associated with moonshining — is exactly what archaeologists would expect to find at a site destroyed violently and suddenly, essentially a time capsule frozen at the moment of its destruction.
The Ashley Gang occupies a genuinely colorful and well-documented chapter in Florida outlaw history. Joe Ashley, the family patriarch, established the homestead around 1910 to 1912, and his son John Ashley went on to become one of the most wanted criminals in the state — a bank robber, bootlegger, and fugitive whose exploits during Prohibition-era Florida earned him a reputation as a kind of Southern Robin Hood, at least in local legend. The gang's feud with Sheriff Bob Baker of Palm Beach County became the stuff of folklore, culminating in John Ashley's death at a roadblock in 1924, the same year the Fruita homestead was burned.
What remains genuinely uncertain is the extent of any buried treasure connected to the Ashleys. The gang was known to have accumulated significant illicit earnings, and local legend holds that some of it may never have been recovered. Gates' episode frames the artifact finds at Fruita as tantalizing — silver dollars, personal objects, industrial remnants — but stops well short of confirming that any cache of outlaw wealth was located. The episode explores the possibility rather than resolving it.
The Expedition Unknown investigation represents a rare instance of on-camera archaeological survey at a site that had been effectively lost to history for nearly a century. Whether the ceramic fragments, trap, and other objects will lead to a more systematic professional excavation remains to be seen, but Carr and Ricca's fieldwork, as documented in the episode, suggests the site has genuine research potential for anyone interested in Florida's Prohibition-era criminal underworld.
Sheriff Bob Baker, who ordered the 1924 raid that destroyed Fruita, reportedly kept John Ashley's glass eye as a keychain after Ashley's death — a gruesome detail that Gates references in the episode's narration.
According to historians Carr and Ricca, the January 9, 1924 raid was conducted without warrants — the deputies, in Carr's words, "didn't come with warrants, they came here to do business."
The settlement of Fruita was so thoroughly destroyed in a single night that it effectively vanished from the historical record, making its relocation by Carr and Ricca a genuine piece of Florida historical detective work.
The artifacts recovered at the site — ceramics, shotgun shells, moonshine still equipment, and silver dollars — paint a picture of a community that was simultaneously a family home, a criminal headquarters, and a bootlegging operation, all in one remote Everglades location.
The Fruita site lies deep in the Florida Everglades and has no developed visitor infrastructure — no marked trails, no signage, and no formal public access point. Visitors interested in the broader region should explore nearby Everglades National Park or Big Cypress National Preserve, which offer ranger-guided access to the Everglades ecosystem; check current conditions and access advisories before any backcountry travel in this area.
West Palm Beach, Florida, approximately 40-50 miles east of the general site area.
The dry season, roughly November through April, is generally considered the best time to visit the Everglades region — lower water levels, reduced mosquito activity, and more comfortable temperatures make overland travel significantly more manageable than during the hot, wet summer months.
Bannack State Park
Bannack State Park is another ghost town investigation in the Gates universe, where a lawless frontier community similarly vanished and left behind archaeological traces of its violent history.
Coffeyville, Kansas
Coffeyville, Kansas was the site of the Dalton Gang's infamous 1892 bank robbery attempt — like the Ashley Gang episode, it centers on a notorious outlaw family whose crimes became the stuff of American legend.
South Carolina swamps
South Carolina swamps appear in a Gates investigation involving hidden criminal activity and fugitive history in remote, hard-to-access American wetland terrain — thematically close to the Everglades outlaw story.