ROBBER BARON PRESERVE

THE HISTORY, LEGEND AND CONTINUED EXPLORATION
by George Veni

Originally published in Published in the NSS News, Volume 47, No. 6, June 1989, pp. 133-138.

The Commercial Years

The cave was originally called Crystal Cave.  Located next to the Old Kings Highway, then the main road from San Antonio to Austin, Crystal Cave was frequently visited by curious passerbys.  In 1918, Arthur and Inez Harp bought the cave and began work to commercialize it.  This preparation included: exploration of the cave, excavation of its crawlway entrance to stoopway size, installation of an iron gate, filling passages with V-shaped slotted floors with tons of rock and dirt to allow for easy walking, and installing benches and a lighting system.

The work proceeded slowly, taking the Harps 8 years to complete.  Collapse of the cave entrance, around 1924, set back the commercialization efforts until it was dug open and timbered. Fearful of further collapse, Arthur sank a new entrance into the entrance sinkhole to intersect the northern end of what is now called the Great Southwest Passage.  Regaining his confidence in the main entrance after a few years, Arthur sealed the artificial shaft entrance around 1927.

In 1926 the first of an estimated 300,000 people began to tour Robber Baron Cave.  The cave name was dreamed up by the Harps to give it an outlaw mystique.  To further its legend, Arthur spread stories of Indian massacres (whose “ghosts haunt the cave”) and of monks who would escape “bloodthirsty Injuns” by entering Robber Baron Cave and exiting at San Pedro Park 8 km away!  Although some of his stories may seem farfetched today, they were taken quite seriously at that time.

After visiting the cave in 1929, W.A. Ownby wrote for the Dallas Morning News that the cave was once a hide-out for a band of thieves ruled by a “robber baron”:

"If the walls of this cave could talk they probably would reveal tales of crime which cause the blood and thunder stories of the wild and woolly west to pale into insignificance."

Arthur Harp knew what sort of tales appealed to the public and often modeled them after factual recent events.  For example, in 1886 the skeleton of Frank Harris was discovered in an area cave thereafter called “Robber’s Cave”.  The discovery and ensuing murder trial of Frank and T.S. Scott attracted much publicity.  In 1894, the San Antonio Daily Express included articles about a “bold band of explorers” in Robber Baron Cave (though it wasn’t referred to by that name).

In 1910, Charles Merritt Barnes consolidated facts and fantasies about Robber Baron Cave and wrote:

"It [the cave] takes its name from a gang of outlaws whose leader was known as Jim Pitts.  This gang operated extensively for about 100 miles around San Antonio and this cave was their rendezvous.  They robbed country post offices, stores, stages, and even churches.  The musical instrument, or organ, belonging to a church not very far from this cave was stolen by this gang.  The mouth of the cave was large enough to enable the robbers, who emulated the example of the famous thirty-nine followers of Ali Baba, mentioned in the Arabian Nights, to remove and hide this organ within its recesses.  This cave has never been fully explored and it is not unlikely it is many miles long and in some places very broad.  A dog that chased a rabbit into it was gone for three days and emerged nine miles from the point he entered.  When found the animal was nearly famished and exhausted."

The cave’s crawlway entrance made it an unlikely choice for use by robbers or Indians, yet Harp drew upon Barnes’ work as the primary source of legends and ideas to enhance the cave’s commercial appeal.

Tourists and skeleton in the Devil's Kitchen, Robber Baron Cave, circa 1930.  Photographer Unknown.

When Robber Baron Cave first opened to the public only 100 m of passage were lit, but it was soon expanded to 250 m.  For 50 cents Arthur Harp would lead eager tourists down wooden stairs in the sinkhole and then into the cave.  First stop was the Pavilion Room (later called Maggie’s Den from 1930-1933).  The Pavilion Room had a picnic table, and benches and rock slabs to sit on.  It served three functions, the first of which was as a waiting area for people to tour the cave.  Second, it could be rented out for catered parties.  Arthur Harp would lock people into the Pavilion Room so they wouldn’t wander off into other parts of the cave, and then would release them at a pre-arranged time.  Frank Pena remembers “we use-ta get drunk awful quick in there.”  Third, during prohibition years the door into the Pavilion Room had a peephole to a speakeasy.

Continuing the tour, Harp would lead on down Popcorn Alley (today the “Entrance Hall”), which was considered the prettiest section of the cave, and then turn left to what is now called the Lighted Passage.  A side passage off the Lighted Passage, opposite the turn into it, led “through the man” (a passage cross section resembling a man’s head, neck, and upper body) into the Devil’s Kitchen.  The Devil’s Kitchen was a small room, in a now collapsed area, which was bathed in red light and contained a coffin and skeleton.  The remainder of Harp’s tour extended down the Lighted Passage and made a loop through the Male Passage (modern name) before heading back out to the surface.

Harp would occasionally lead off-trail tours for science classes and other interested groups.  Self-guided tours were available and to keep people from getting hopelessly lost, Harp blasted shut many passages, thus limiting the cave’s extent to what is presently known.  Not all passages were blasted at the same time.  Some were kept open so Harp could explore them.  He camouflaged these passages by constructing artificial walls, plastered with cave clay, so they would appear to a wandering tourist as a natural cave wall.

By 1929 however, all passages out of the current 1336 m long cave system were permanently sealed either by Harp or the Gas Company.  During that year natural gas pipelines were being laid under what is now Nacogdoches Road.  As a result, all underlying passages were blasted shut -- notice on the map that passages along the cave’s east side end in a relatively straight line under Nacogdoches Road.

Advertisement for the cave was primarily by word of mouth and by pictures painted on the Harps’ old Whippet truck.  Its location on one of the main roads into San Antonio and just a few kilometers outside the city was a key factor in developing the public’s awareness of the cave.  Just prior to the commercial opening, Arthur Harp guided almost fifty news carriers from the Dallas Morning News in order to receive widespread free publicity.  Tourists arriving at Robber Baron would find that handbills and small booklets on the cave were available (none of which have been located and would be of great historical interest to find).  To widen the cave’s appeal, a small park was established around the entrance.  Park amenities included a hotdog stand, beverages, picnic area, playground with a merry-go-round and croquet, and a cable ride for children from the top of the sinkhole down 10 m to the entrance (remains of the cable ride’s concrete platform are still on the sinkhole’s east rim).

Concession stand at the entrance to Robber Baron Cave, circa 1930.  Photographer unknown.

In about 1926 the Harps joined in a partnership with a Mr. Strickland, but this only lasted a year or two.  In late 1929 Arthur’s mother became very ill.  As a result, he and Inez moved to Kansas to take care of her and never returned to San Antonio.  In 1930 a Mr. Saur assumed management of the cave.  In 1933 he had to close the cave as a commercial operation due to lack of public interest, compounded by the Great Depression.  Except for the cable ride’s concrete platform, an unattached cave gate, some bolts and electric lines in the Lighted Passage, all commercial hardware was removed from the cave by 1934.

Kids, Cavers and Surveys

William Gray produced the first known map of the cave in 1935.  About 800 m of passage were included.  In 1938 the cave was briefly used to commercially raise mushrooms.  After this venture a 40-year battle began between the cave owners, trying to seal the cave for reasons of liability, and increasing numbers of neighborhood kids (as the city expanded to and beyond the cave), who were continually digging it open.  A factor of the cave’s accessibility that worked for and against both parties was stormwater runoff into the cave.  Over the years rains would periodically fill and wash open the entrance crawlway.

In May 1950 Robber Baron Cave was included within a 0.18 sq km purchase by its present owner.  The lot in which the sinkhole is located cost approximately $100.  In the early 1950s, Gordon Danz, Bob Hudson, and members of the St. Mary’s University Speleological Society explored the cave.   In 1961 seven youths were trapped in the cave by mud and water clogging the entrance crawl.  After considerable effort to excavate the crawl, all but one of the boys escaped.  The remaining youth was stuck and the San Antonio Fire Department had to haul him out.  In other “rescue” efforts in the cave, S.A.F.D. personnel would find their “victims” enjoying the effects of drugs and alcohol.

Two trips were made in 1962 to survey Robber Baron Cave.  The first was on the evening of 12-13 January.  The party consisted of University of Texas Speleological Society members Eugene Blum, James Reddell, A. Richard Smith, and Peggy Walkington.  About one week later Reddell and Smith returned with Orion Knox.  A total of 550 m were surveyed on those trips and an additional 300 m were explored.  From 7 March to 19 June 1969 Roger V. Bartholomew and Wayne Russell led members of the original San Antonio Grotto on the first major survey of the cave.  They produced a fine map that showed 1061 m of passage.  In 1976 the newly reorganized San Antonio Grotto undertook the resurvey of Robber Baron Cave with one of their primary objectives being to include as much detail as possible.  Their search for detail revealed many small passages that had been overlooked in earlier surveys.  This raised the total length to 1336 m.  Teeni Kern, Gary A. Poole, George Veni, and Randy M. Waters led that effort which lasted from 11 December 1976 to 17 March 1977.

Except for the survey efforts, the owner had for many years refused cavers access to the cave.  The San Antonio Grotto has maintained access since 1976, largely because SAG members Veni and Waters used many hundreds of kilos in concrete, brick, and steel to gate the cave in October 1980.  “No Trespassing” signs were also installed.

Following the gating of the cave, SAG members felt an effective cave clean-up was finally possible.  Years of teen-traffic had adorned the cave with the expected assortment and volume of trash, string and spray-paint.  An article was placed in a local newspaper that the cave was gated and a clean-up would take place the weekend of 17-18 January 1981.  Anyone interested was invited to help.  The purpose of this invitation was to educate the local residents about the value of the cave, discourage their further use of the sinkhole as a trash dump, inform them about the gate, and invite them to call the SAG if they would like to see the cave.

The clean-up was very successful.  Most of the trash in the sinkhole was removed.  A tour of the cave was given to volunteers as thanks for their participation.  Numerous sacks were filled with trash during the tour and removed from the cave.  Since the clean-up, the SAG has held periodic trips into the cave (many of them clean-ups to work on the remaining trash and spray-paint) that included local youths who would have otherwise tried to break in, saving a lot of wear and tear on the gate.  A register has been placed in the cave since its 1980 gating to serve as a continuing record of the cave’s history.

Sinkhole entrance after tons of dumped trash was removed and the remaining unstable slope was stabilized. Photo by David Nash.

Beyond the Breakdown

When the SAG began their project on Robber Baron Cave in 1976, an advertisement was placed in the San Antonio Express News asking for people who had been in the cave during its pre-commercial, commercial, and immediate post-commercial years.  Much of the information presented in this historical account was obtained through interviews with many individuals, some of whom were closely involved with the Harps.  Of special interest were rumors that had persisted throughout the years of underground rivers, lakes, and of a tremendously extensive maze beyond the cave’s present bounds.  Given the stories that Arthur Harp had spread, it was difficult to determine what was really true.  In this respect the interviews were truly priceless.

The late Charles Spang lived near the cave and was a frequent companion of Arthur Harp.  Together they installed much of the cave’s electric lighting and explored beyond the cave’s present limits.  One of the areas they visited was where Spang’s windmill intersected the cave a few hundred meters east of Nacogdoches Road.  The main extent of exploration though, was to the southwest.  In that area Harp and Spang found:

• a pit that was too deep to explore;

• a lake and a stream passage; that Robber Baron connected to Holmgreen’s Hole an extensive (but currently sealed) maze cave about 700 m distant;

• and passages which they estimated had led them as far as the Texas Military Institute, 3.2 km to the southwest!

Arthur Michael recalled a deep pit, possibly to water, beyond Popcorn Alley.  Ray T. Dixon remembered that in 1927 the cave extended east, well beyond Nacogdoches Road, but its major extent was to the southwest.  In that direction about 100 m beyond the Pavilion Room, was the “tunnel to the stream.”  His estimated distance from the entrance to the stream was about 400 m:

"Go in about a quarter mile...step down 4 feet into a passage about 40-50 feet long where you crawl on your hands and knees...step down, turn right, and go 25-30 feet to reach the river.”

Dixon claimed the river was “about 8 feet wide and 2 feet deep.”  The river came out of one wall and went into the other.  The 2.6 m high and wide passage Dixon was in continued unexplored from the river’s far bank.  Dixon also mentioned that he saw pinkish-white eyeless fish in the river.  (The most productive wells and springs in the rock in which Robber Baron is formed are due to artesian waters rising along faults from the underlying Edwards Aquifer.  Blind fish have been found in the Edwards waters and could account for those found in the cave.)  To the left of the “step down” following the 12-15 m (40-50 ft) crawl, Dixon explored 70 m by climbing along the passage walls with a stream far below him.  The end of that passage was not reached.

Ted Zettner provided the most compelling and verifiable account of the cave’s great extent.  “The main part of the cave got blocked off,” Zettner stated, and to prove it he elaborated on one particular trip he made into the cave in 1925.  On that trip it was decided among his group to take as much string as they could carry (so not to get lost) and by using a compass they would set off in one direction as far as they could explore.  The passages they were in led them a great distance to the southwest.  Eventually they reached a steep mud slope down into a lake room.  Like Dixon’s river the lake had blind fish in it.  Unlike the river, a water well pipe intersected the cave and the lake.  Its pump on the surface could be plainly heard in the cave. Zettner and his friends played in the water and then left the cave.

In 1925 there was only one windmill in the direction Zettner’s group had been traveling.  Fiftyone years later, Zettner pinpointed the well’s location at 1.4 km southwest of Robber Baron Cave.  Upon exiting the cave in 1925, Zettner and company approached the farmer who owned the well to inform him of their discovery.  The farmer replied, “So you’re the little bastards who muddied my water!”  That day had been the only time the farmer pumped muddy water from his well.  Connection confirmed.

Dig!

In view of these tales, and others of construction teams that constantly broke into caves when that part of the city was being developed, the San Antonio Grotto began digging at various breakdown areas in the cave.  The first major excavation site was in the Pavilion Room, but more and more interviews indicated the west end of the Lighted Passage was the main route to the river.  In late 1976 Poole, Veni, and Waters were joined by John Cross, Jesse Hernandez, and Chuck Pautz in the first of many assaults upon what is now referred to as the “Mystery Breakdown.”  Veni and Waters headed the effort and by 1981, 10 m had been tunneled with the use of picks, shovels, hammers, chisels, and buckets.

The dig has been a relatively safe venture due to the type of rock involved, the Austin Chalk.  After collapse, this soft rock compresses and recompacts itself into a stable matrix of relatively uniform density and consistency.  Unlike other rock types where digging in collapse primarily involves the removal of individual breakdown blocks balanced upon each other, the Robber Baron dig is more akin to carving a tunnel (its average size is 1.3 m high and wide).  Although some parts of the tunnel have been shored with pressure-treated lumber, it is mostly a precautionary measure.  In the tunnel’s 12-year existence (to the date of this writing) only minor amounts of clay and rock have sporadically flaked off the ceiling.

In 1981 the cave’s owner became interested in extending the length of his cave. Late that year and in early 1982 he rented a air powered jack-hammer to assist in the digging effort.  A portable air compressor was on the surface and over 100 m of high-pressure hose connected it to the hammer at the Mystery Breakdown.  Kurt L. Menking constructed two carts for transporting excavated material out of the tunnel.  The motto of the dig was painted on the side of the carts, “Holmgreen’s or Bust.”  So far it has been “bust.”

The first 10-11 m of the tunnel were dug through a compact rock-clay matrix.  The uncollapsed cave walls were also excavated and used as guides for where to dig.  The jackhammered 2-3 m, however, seem to be in an area of major collapse.  The walls have been temporarily lost. It appears that that portion of the tunnel is carved through a single large breakdown block.  Vibrations from Camellia Drive located above the Mystery Breakdown are believed to have added to the collapse. The dig in the Mystery Breakdown has been a grim effort, but it is hoped the end of the collapse will be reached under the far side of Camellia Drive only 2-3 m away.

Jackhammer assist in pushing the Mystery Breakdown.  Photo by George Veni.

Although the end of the dig was potentially near, enthusiasm had faded by 1983 and other exciting projects beckoned.  In 1986 some determined fellow breached the Robber Baron gate by use of a portable cutting torch.  In 1987 a new and stronger gate was designed and installed.  With the new gate came new blood.  James Loftin, who had explored the cave in the early 60’s as a teenager, renewed his interest in caving and began spending a lot of time and energy at the cave with his sons Scott and Timothy.  They began digging at leads throughout the cave and found several small extensions, but nothing leading out of the maze.  The most remarkable and admirable aspect of their work was in removing all the dirt and rock they dug from the cave to not clog-up or otherwise alter the natural appearance of the other passages.  They hauled tons of material!  But their efforts paid off.

In late 1987 they dug to a wooden false floor -- one of Harp’s trap doors which led to a lower level.  Unfortunately the passage was only 7 m long and ended in collapse.  Nonetheless, this discovery has helped keep up enthusiasm for a long, hard project.

Is all the digging worth the effort?   digging throughout the years is a simple calculation.  Multiply the amount of passage per area (about 1.6 km per 100 sq. m actually, but trimmed down to 1 km/100 sq. m to assume the passage density decreases beyond the breakdown although all reports say it doesn’t) by the area in which it has been explored (at the very least 1.4 km by 100 sq. m to Zettner’s windmill) and you get a cave at least 14 km long.  A less conservative, but still reasonable estimate of density and area could put the cave over 50 km long!  So to answer the question, Robber Baron Cave is potentially one of the longest caves in the world and therefore well worth the efforts expended.

For more information please e-mail joe.mitchell@tcmacaves.org

Preserve Manager: Joe Mitchell

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