Lost River - Karst Information Portal

weekends. Sometimes I would bring a classmate
or two with me, and my girlfriend would fix
them up with her friends. We would go caving
and hang out at The Barn.
That summer of 1967 Dick decided to build
his house in the Volcano Room of Buckner
Cave. Having a 600-foot crawlway for a front
porch is not too practical. Dick began digging
a pit entrance just off of the “S” curve on Eller
Road into the far end of the Volcano Room.
We spent several weekends using the same
basic technique used for the Thunder Hall
entrance of Queen Blair. One would dig, one
would haul, and the rest would sit and watch.
When we broke in it meant we could now do
a through trip in Buckner, or better yet, do the
circle route without the crawlway. Dick never
built his house in the cave. After a few years, the
back entrance to Buckner collapsed into itself.
That fall I shipped out to the west coast to
begin a five-year odyssey of military adventures.
Whenever I got home on leave, I would head
straight for the barn. There I would meet new
cavers, catch up with the old ones, hear all about
the latest happenings in the caving world, and
take a romp or two around the circle route. I did
happen to notice that the weekend crowds were
larger, with fewer cavers in the groups. One night
I was in a bar in Rota, Spain, enjoying a beer
and the company of a lovely young bartender
from New Zealand. When she asked me where
I was from, and I said Bloomington, Indiana,
her face lit up. She told me about a quaint
free hostel in an old barn out in the country.
She and a friend had been hitchhiking across
the United States and caught a ride with some
students from Southern Illinois University. I
asked her if there was a cave behind the barn.
She excitedly asked me if I had been there.
Wanting to extend the conversation, I lied and
told her no, but that I had heard about it. She
spent the next three beers telling me all about
it and insisted that I check it out the next time
I was home. I promised that I would. The Barn
was officially world famous.
Service completed, I returned home and
bought a house just off of the opposite end of
Eller Road. It was 1973 and Dick was building
The Barn
his house on the east side of the road to the
barn just off of Eller Road. That summer,
several cavers helped Dick finish his house.
Around the Christmas holidays he took a
vacation to Mystery Cave in Minnesota. One
weekday afternoon I received a phone call from
Bud Dillon. He had just been to Dick’s house,
and someone had kicked in the front door. I
called Mystery and told Dick. He asked me to
see if any of his valuable tools were still in the
basement and, if so, to take them to my house
until he returned. I backed my truck up to his
basement door, went through the busted front
door and began loading anything I could find of
value into my truck. Since it was the middle of
the week I was surprised when, about half way
through the job, I looked up to see two people
standing by the corner of the house staring
intently at me. They were camping in the barn
and happened to walk up by the house. They
noticed the busted in front door and heard
some noise in the back. They walked around
and saw someone they did not know loading
all of Dick’s valuable tools into his truck. It
is what I have always considered an awkward
moment. I finally asked them if they were cavers
and they said they were. I told them I was also,
and that if they would help me load the rest of
the stuff and follow me to my house, I would
give them some good locations. They agreed. I
have always assumed they figured that if I were
a thief, I would not have let them actually see
where I was stashing the loot. That is how I met
Dar Groves and Chuck Guemple.
Dick’s relocation to his property was too
little, too late. His generous giving of the use
of his property was falling into the hands of
those with absolutely no appreciation of what
they had. The pigs of society had invaded. They
came in droves and left the place scarred and
trashed. Thus also began the era of the rescue.
The local cavers expended countless man-hours
dragging dimwits who had run out of light or
gotten lost out of the local caves. The era of
the rescue would continue until late into the
1990s.
In 1986 The Barn died. The invading scum
had begun tearing the sides and hayloft floor off
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