Lost River - Karst Information Portal

The gathering of information about Indiana
caves started in the 19th century and has
taken on many forms and involved many cavers
through the years. The sources of the data
used to create the initial catalog were varied.
Richard L. Powell received and collected
data from several groups and individuals,
including Willis S. Blatchley’s reports from
the late 19th century, reports from the state of
Indiana geologists from about 1937, as well as
Roy Davis, Lewis Lamon, Art Davis, and the
Purdue Outing Club in the late 1950s. This
information provided the basis for data that
subsequently went into the Indiana Geological
Survey publication Caves of Indiana, which
Richard Powell started in 1956. The data kept
flowing in and, after revising the book three
times, he released it for publication in 1961.
During subsequent years, personnel at
the Indiana Geological Survey typed out cave
locations and information on 3x5 index cards
and sorted them manually into categories.
Since there were no Xerox machines and
similar reproduction capability was not readily
available at the time, various lists were compiled
on paper and updated periodically as new
information flowed in. The system was later
upgraded by transferring the data to 5x8 cards
but continued to be maintained at the Indiana
Geological Survey.
The cave files got their computer-age start
in early 1970, when punch cards containing
the cave data were created and maintained at
the Indiana Geological Survey. Richard Powell
also was responsible for that effort, as new data
continued to be compiled and processed. By
about 1971 the data was divided up among
three or four individuals so as not to have one
complete set of data in any one person’s hands
or in any single location. This was done for
228
The Indiana Cave Survey:
Past, Present, and Future
By Dave Everton, NSS #25891RE
security and integrity of the data.
An awakening came about not long
afterward when a reporter from the New
Albany area requested the cave data from the
Indiana Geological Survey with the intention
of publishing a book. This created quite a stir
and local cavers decided against it. They told
him the cave files didn’t belong to the Indiana
Geological Survey, but to cavers. Although the
reporter was rather persistent for some time,
he finally gave up. It was then decided that
the cave data should change hands out of the
Survey. This was due to concerns that it might
be considered public information and that
eventually someone would be able to obtain it
forcibly by legal means.
Dick Blenz moved to Bloomington in 1966
and lived in Highland Village until finishing
his Eller Road house in 1975. He was one of
the individuals in possession of portions of the
cave data Dick Powell had parsed out. He was
also responsible for the NSS Cave Files, having
been asked to do so by Tom Rea. The NSS Cave
Files contained very little data on Indiana caves
since it wasn’t standard practice at that time to
provide the NSS office with copies of published
information or newsletters.
Dick also had one of the first computers
that could plot survey data. He and Sam
Frushour used it to crunch data from the
Sullivan Cave Project. This computer was used
as a dumb terminal connection and was hooked
up to an Indiana University mainframe. It
used a program developed by Randy Jackson
that utilized FORTRAN and enabled him to
process the data. Among the data processed was
information compiled by Dick Powell, as well
as a big, thick log book that was a compilation
of Indiana cave information recorded over
many years by individual cavers at the Blenz