Running Scared (12 page)

I
n 1898, a 16-year-old named Jim White, who was just a couple of years older than Jack Landon, began exploring Carlsbad's hidden limestone caves. What drew him to the spot where he would make this amazing discovery? Bats! They caught the young Jim's attention as he was mending a fence—millions of Mexican free-tailed bats, swirling into the air like a black funnel cloud. It was that explosion of bats that led him across the desert landscape to the natural cave entrance, which Jim described as “the great hole under long slabs of yellow and gray stone.” After making a ladder of sticks, rope, and wire, Jim entered the cave with only a lantern for light. What he saw, and what he later introduced to others, has become one of the true wonders of the world.

For 17 years after Jim's discovery, Carlsbad Cavern went mostly unnoticed. Although Jim was fascinated by his “Bat Cave,” as he called it, records show that he wasn't much of a talker, and he had a hard time convincing others of the amazing underground world he had discovered. It didn't help that it was difficult to experience the cavern. Visitors had to be lowered 170 feet in buckets onto trails that were treacherous to walk, and it could take more than an hour to lower 20 people. Dedicated to luring visitors into the cave, Jim decided the Bat Cave needed better trails, so he began to level pathways and to string wire for handholds. Then, in 1915, Jim guided a Kansas-born photographer named Ray V. Davis into the cavern. Davis's amazing photographs of dazzling cave scenes began to arouse public interest, and visitors began appearing almost daily.

By 1923, the U.S. General Land Office sent an expedition to survey the cave's measurements. The leader of this expedition, Robert Holley, expected to be done with his assignment in a day. It took more than a month to finish the job. Holley, awed by glistening soda straws, delicate lily pads, mind-boggling spaces, and chandeliers made of ribbon stalactites, strongly recommended that Carlsbad Caverns be established as a national monument.

Several months later, a geologist named Dr. Willis T. Lee wrote an article for N
ATIONAL
G
EOGRAPHIC
magazine, enchanting readers with descriptions of Carlsbad's natural wonders. On October 25, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge placed the caverns in the National Park System.

Since 1924, the first full year of operation, more than 37 million people have visited Carlsbad Caverns. And most of them, like Sam and Jack and Ashley and the rest of the Landon family, have made the decision to help protect the caves and their formations, the bats and other animals, the plants and landscape, and the historical artifacts that have made Carlsbad Caverns a world heritage site. Many people come to Carlsbad Caverns to refresh their spirits, to learn more about nature and history, to broaden their horizons, or to share with their own children what their parents shared with them. Visitors like the Landons make it possible for us to preserve areas like Carlsbad Caverns for generations to come.

The portal to the vast wonderland of Carlsbad Caverns was known to prehistoric Native Americans 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Although there is no evidence of any humans probing the depths of the cavern until Jim White's turn-of-the-century exploration, the early natives did leave behind a pictograph of a hand high up on the cavern's Natural Entrance wall, a lasting reminder of their spiritual connection to this mystical place.

May you one day explore the mystery and magic of Carlsbad Caverns for yourself.

Bob Hoff
Park Historian
Carlsbad Caverns National Park

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