Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
taste.
The one thing show caves had in common
during the 19th into the 20th century, was that
a person really had to want to go to get there.
Road conditions were awful and only started
to improve after World War II.
Luxurious excursions during the steamboat
era after the Civil War offered an elegant and
leisurely way to reach the cave, landing nearby
at the Leavenworth dock. A faster method
began with the railroad (1884) from having
a stop at Milltown and an overland taxi ride
to the cave. All this changed when the first
motorcar reached Wyandotte in 1907. From
mid 1851, the cave was a destination stop up
to the building of the Interstate Road System
in the 1960s.
Last quarter 19th century academics and
their students came to the cave to collect
fauna and flora, conduct archaeological
investigations, and hypothesize the origin of
caves and cave formations. The prime reason
most of these people came to the cave was
the facilities at the hotel. Here one could cave
all day, collect and measure to their hearts
content, exit the cave, clean up, have a hot
meal, organize their collections, and write up
field notes before turning in for a nights sleep.
Mammoth Cave offered similar facilities. These
two caves became yardsticks (type examples) by
which all other caves would be compared. Ease
of reproducibility of observations and biologic
collections was paramount for the fledgling
science of biospeleology. The cave environment
was teaming with uniquely adapted and newly
discovered life forms, which were prime
candidates to support Darwin’s theory of
evolution (1859).
Cavers went to Wyandotte Cave to
experience an underground adventure. Its
rudimentary trail and breakdown rock as steps
fostered an almost wild caving experience. The
Rothrock family was against improving the
trail system by installing wooden or concrete
steps, hand railings, or electric lights. These
improvements grated their sensibilities as
to how the cave should be exhibited. They
were early proponents of an environmental
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conservation ethic to keep the cave in as natural
a condition as possible. Henry P. Rothrock
handed down his steadfast beliefs that were
centered on resurrecting a vanished frontier
America draped by primitive forces in a wild
and rugged underground terrain. His feelings
echoed sentiments voiced by America’s cultural
social consciousness during the 1820s to 1850s.
Making improvements in the cave was not
about spending money; rather it was the family
mandate to keep the cave in a natural state.
Through the first 70 or so years of commercial
life, the cave was closer to a wild caving
experience than any other cave in the nation. It
was a step back in time and the rugged vistas and
excitement of Arcadian wonders that delighted
visitors. On the surface, the experience was like
walking in a park, not unlike at Mammoth
Cave. In the 1920s, some improvements were
made but only of a limited nature. Electric
lights were installed only in 1969 to 1970 after
the state of Indiana purchased the cave.
Wyandotte filled a void in mid 19th century
cities by providing open public manicured
spaces with recreation facilities. The concept of
public parks had yet to take hold in America.
Locally, Wyandotte and Mammoth Cave along
with garden cemeteries consisting of sinkhole
studded Walnut Hill ( Jeffersonville, Indiana)
and Cave Hill (Louisville, Kentucky) filled
this recreation gap until the public park ideas
of Frederick Law Olmsted took hold in major
cities. 1 Keeping the cave in a pristine condition
was consistent with visual ideas expressed in
landscape paintings of the Hudson River school
of art and literature of the time, especially works
by James Fenimore Cooper and Washington
Irving.
Strong Cooperesque characters filled the
1 Mammoth Cave caver and civil engineer, Edmund
F. Lee, of Louisville, Kentucky, designed the
two mentioned cemeteries. And yes, people went
to garden cemeteries to have fun, party, commune
with nature, picnic, feed the wildlife, go caving,
and swim in the creek. Recreation wise, garden
cemeteries and commercial caves were the Disneyland
of the day.