History

In 1927, a young woodcutter, Walter Peck, was on his way to play poker with his friends. Before reaching the game, he stumbled and nearly fell into a rather large, funnel-shaped hole. Since he didn't have the proper equipment to explore the hole, he continued on to the poker game. Once there he started telling the boys about a new, big hole in the middle of his trail. The next morning Walter gathered some friends. With ropes and lanterns, they went to explore his new hole. A rope was tied around the waist of a local cowboy. He was lowered into the hole. By the time his feet touched the floor of the hole, 150 feet of rope had been let out. He found himself in a very large, dark cavern. Using the coal oil lantern, he began exploring. However, the only thing that excited him was the thought he had found a very rich vein of gold. As he'd cast the light from this lantern across the cavern it picked up some sparkles in the rock. He quickly gathered up a sack full of samples. He gave his signal, three tugs on the rope. Walter and the other men started pulling him back up out to the hole. Upon reaching the surface he excitedly showed the samples to Walter. Then he told his friends that , on a ledge at the 50 foot level, he'd seen the remains of two human skeletons and remnants of a horse saddle. By the time the newspapers had finished with the story, these had become the remains of a prehistoric caveman with no mention of the horse saddle. The story caused a great stir among people. Soon, scientists had come from the east to pick up and study the bones. While all of this was going on, Walter purchased the property and the Caverns in preparation for mining gold!