"We currently have photographers, biologists, archaeologists, an underwater archaeologist, geological engineer, religious studies experts, computer gurus, artists and a forensic anthropologist who is also a death investigator for St. We were working with Meramec Valley Grotto, and then it took off,” Williams says. It was originally for academia, to support other caves archeologists. “We saw the need to just focus on this, and that was the beginning of CAIRN. That is where an archeologist comes in,” Williams explains. It has to strike your eye this doesn’t belong here. “The cave was out in the desert, and when we went inside, we found pottery, and old sandals forcing artifacts into cracks for ceremonial purposes.
The nonagenarian revealed the location of one cave in particular he believed Williams should investigate.
Back in the 1950s, people would pay the man to explore caves and bring back artifacts. Interestingly, his love of exploring caves began when interviewing an elderly resident about outlaws staging their own deaths in the wilderness outside of town. He originally faced some skepticism from his professors, who believed that the United States lacked the kinds of archeologically important caves that Mexico possesses in abundance. “I had an interest in caves and archeology in college,” he says, adding he went on to study archeology in graduate school at New Mexico State University. You can’t teach the love of exploring caves-you have to have the ‘disease.’”įor Williams, the story is a little more complex. “The first cave I explored at 16 doesn’t even have a name it’s about 100 feet long. Louis County surrounded by caves it wasn’t a choice,” explains Light. I sat down with Light and Williams recently to learn about their organization’s inspiration and what their work entails. Consequently, this year, I jumped at the opportunity to attend a presentation at Urban Chestnut about a brewery cellar Light and Williams had explored with fellow members of CAIRN, Cave Archaeology Investigation & Research Network, which has been exploring and documenting caves in Missouri, particularly the St. Several years ago, I saw a presentation on Uhrig’s Cave that Light gave out in Kirkwood at a Meremac Valley Grotto meeting and was amazed at the images of the seemingly lost cellars under downtown. Over the years, in the course of my research, I’ve received valuable information and inspiration on several occasions from Joe Light and Craig Williams about the underground world that exists under St. Through incredible photographs, detailed maps and insightful writing, the reader gets a peek beneath the city streets into a time and place almost wholly forgotten.I am fascinated by the old caves and cellars German American brewers used back in the 19th century to lager their beer. The book chronicles that exploration, as well as their historical research of the natural limestone caves that have been used for everything from animal lairs (bones found in one of the caves belonging to an animal were dated to between 20,000 and 1 million years old) to beer storage areas and have held everything from a swimming pool to a mushroom farm, a theater to illegal gambling operations and distilleries. They descended into the dark, forgotten caverns-many of which were scheduled for demolition at the time-before they were closed by construction crews. The Rothers set out to research and explore the history behind the mysterious underground in the 1960s. Louis, Hubert and Charlotte Rother help us realize that only a few feet of stone separates the downtown streets and a series of dark passageways and chambers sealed off from the public. But there’s a history page left unturned for most of us. We’re a city steeped in civic pride and rich history. The most popular beer in the world flows here. We have the tallest monument in the country.
Louis is a city with a lot to be proud of. Hubert and Charlotte Rother Virginia Publishing
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