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Subject: 1885, Pat Foley, Saloon Keeper, Explores Grand Gulf Cavern
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 06:50:51 EDT

The Bedford Gazetter
Bedford, Pennsylvania
Friday - April 20, 1900

Grand Gulf Cavern

A Great Cave That Is In Southwestern Missouri

Southwest Missouri is full of strange earth formations that are called
"natural" curiosities in spite of their un-naturalness. The earth is full of caves
and sink holes. One of the most celebrated of these is the Grand Gulf, in
Oregon county, about four miles from Koshkonong. It is a sort of canyon, in
shape not unlike a horseshoe and serves the purpose of a drainage bed in the wet
season for a 12 mile area of hills. The canyon is 220 feet deep, with a
natural bridge in one place and a subterranean lake and river that opens at one
end. The river only exists during the wet season, for the earth at the bottom
of the canyon is porous and absorbs the water. The lake, however, is full the
whole year round.

This cave, containing the subterranean river and lake, had never been
explored to the end till the summer of 1885, when Pat Foley, a saloon keeper from
Thayer, with a companion performed the exploit. Foley had made two trips
before into the cave, but had not been able to secure a companion courageous
enough to persevere in the enterprise. Each man had weakened and returned before
the end of the cave was reached. On the third trip, however, Foley had with him
a man of courage.

The entrance to the cave is wide and deep. The bed is of broken stones, over
which trickles a tiny stream of water in the dry season. A hundred feet
inside the cave the entrance suddenly narrows into a hole so small that a man
must get on hands and knees to pass through. Beyond this narrow hole the
entrance widens into a large grotto. There is a steep hill to climb; next the hill
descends sharply into a lake. To penetrate to the end of this lake it was
necessary to have a boat so small that it could be dragged through the narrow
passage into the grotto.

Foley and his companion built a boat of suitable size and hauled it through
the narrow entrance. They took with them also a long coil of rope, a quantity
of matches, some railroad lanterns and four torches with cotton wadding on
the ends soaked in kerosene. The cave, of course, is perfectly dark. The men
used their lanterns till they got through the narrow place, but to their
amazement the lantern flames inside the grotto slowly grew dim and finally went
out. They tried to light them again, but the sulphur of the matches would flare
up only to be extinguished immediately. The reason of this was that the
atmosphere was exceedingly damp and heavy.

The men succeeded in lighting the four kerosene torches, and grasping one of
them in each hand they made their way down the slope to the lake and stood
the torches up between the rocks. The torches smoldered like hot coals, giving
out very little flame. The boat was dragged down to the lake, the torches
fastened at the prow and stern, one end of the rope tied to a boulder and the
rest of the coil thrown in the boat. When the two men sat down in the frail
craft they found the water rose to within three inches of the gunwales. It was
impossible to use oars without tipping the boat far enough to sink it, so the
men were forced to paddle cautiously with their hands.

They forced the little craft into the unknown lake, the smoldering torches
lighting up the blackness for only a few feet around them. Outside it was a
warm summer day, they knew, but inside it was like a closed refrigerator, all
blackness and dampness and cold. The water of the lake was ice cold, and at
every few dips they had to stop and warm their hands. There was nothing to be
seen on any side -- nothing but darkness. No sound could penetrate the cavern.
If the boat should capsized -- as it was likely to do with the slightest
disturbance -- they would be cramped in a minute in the cold water without a
chance of help from the outside.

After a long and tedious paddling the boat's prow was suddenly buried in a
bank of mud and gravel. Foley took a torch and stepped out cautiously in his
rubber boots into the mud. He found he had come to the end of the lake and that
a sharply inclined wall of rock rose before him. The saloon keeper climbed
up the wall about 40 feet above the lake searching for a continuance of the
cavern. But he could find none. Apparently the cavern ended there. He returned
to the boat, where his companion sat. The two men made their way across the
lake and out through the narrow place in safety. They had been gone an hour,
and their friends outside had begun to fear an accident had happened to them.

So far as people know, the cave in the Grand Gulf has no outlet. The Indian
traditions about the cave are that it was a subterranean waterway much used at
one time by boatmen, who used to carry provisions in boats to the Arkansas
valley. If this be true, the river must have been stopped up many years ago by
some convulsion of nature and the lake formed then.

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