Lost River - Karst Information Portal

Tom Duselis looking at cannonballs in Cannonball Cave.
Photo by Brian Killingbeck.
Cave side of the system. The Powells sold
the rest of the property to Eric and Annette
Boeck (Beck) around 1995. The Boecks were
not caver-friendly and often lashed out with
hostility at cavers near their property.
During the 1999 Cave Capers, Cannonball
Cave was not featured in the guidebook but a
large group of 10 or 15 went there anyway. They
had permission to use both Cannonball Cave
entrances; however, the Boone Cave Entrance
was off limits. Never the less, Annette Boeck
drove up on them walking down the street in
muddy cloths and accused them of trespassing
on their property. Later, when I was there with
Melissa Thomas and Ron Harlow, I pulled
up to an empty yellow house at the start of
the driveway. When I went there to help map
Cannonball Cave on Kevin Strunk’s effort
back in the early 1980s we parked at the yellow
house. So I thought it was on the same property
as the entrance we were using and, when she
told us to park up front at the end of the lane, I
parked at the abandoned house.
While Ron and I were looking at the Climb-
Down Entrance Annette drove up to Melissa
and rudely screamed at her for trespassing.
Melissa told us about it when we came back to
Owen County Caves
the car and wanted
to leave. So, I moved
the car into the field
across the driveway.
Annette pulled out
a few minutes later
calling someone on
her cell phone, but
had nothing to say to
me. A few weeks later
on a Sunday morning,
we were in the same
place with permission
to park and Eric
Boeck went to his
mailbox. I waved and
said hi, and waited to
answer any questions
he had about what
we were doing. He
just waived back as he
went down the lane to his house. It seems more
than a coincidence, a few weeks later, the house
and cave went up for sale and soon after, they
were gone. New residents have moved into the
house and do not allow access to the cave from
their property, but will gladly point cavers to
Green Bluffs.
Local History
The cave has been known to settlers since
the early days as old dates on the walls indicate.
According to the old dates, the cave was often
visited and remained open to exploration to
the early 1960s. Ed Powell restricted access to
the cave because increased visitation became
burdensome. After Ed closed the cave he actually
cleared the Entrance Room of all the big rocks
and used it as a barn through much of the last
half of the twentieth century. The Powells had
a relative, Russell Lester, who was an EMT
with Will Ott, a Bloomington area caver, in
the early 1980s. Ott obtained permission from
Russell for Randy Jackson and Dave Doolin
to survey Boone Cave. They mapped in the
historic section before the Boone–Cannonball
connection was made. They never finished
their map. Russell also gained access for Kevin
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