Oregon Caves National Monument - History

History

Archeologists believe the first humans to inhabit the Rogue River region were nomadic hunters and gatherers. Radiocarbon dating suggests that they arrived in southwestern Oregon at least 8,500 years ago. At least 1,500 years before the first contact with whites, the natives established permanent villages along streams. Even so, no evidence has been found to suggest that any of the native peoples, such as the Takelma who lived along the Rogue and Applegate rivers in the 19th century, used the cave.

Largely bypassed by the early non-native explorers, fur traders, and settlers because of its remote location, the region attracted newcomers in quantity when prospectors found gold near Jacksonville in the Rogue River valley in 1851. This led to the creation of Jackson County in 1852 and, after gold discoveries near Waldo in the Illinois River valley, to the creation of Josephine County, named for the daughter of a gold miner. Even with an influx of miners and of settlers who farmed donation land claims, Josephine County's population was only 1,204 in 1870.

Elijah Jones Davidson, who discovered the cave in 1874, emigrated from Illinois to Oregon with his parents, who eventually settled along Williams Creek in Josephine County. Williams, as the community came to be called, is about 12 miles (19 km) northeast of the cave.

Only a few people visited the cave during the next decade. Among them was Thomas Condon, professor of geology at the University of Oregon. Guided by Davidson's brother, in 1884 he and a group of students hiked from Williams to the cavern, which they inspected by candlelight. Shortly thereafter, Walter Burch, an acquaintance of the Davidson family, tried to develop the cave as a business. Burch and his partners opened what they called Limestone Caves and charged visitors $1 each for a guided cave trip, a camping spot, pasture for horses, and cave water they described as medicinal. Although Burch and others hacked crude trails to the cave from Cave Junction and Williams, the trip was too difficult for most tourists, and Limestone Caves ceased operations in 1888.

In the early 1890s, the Oregon Caves Improvement Company, headed by Alfonso B. Smith of San Diego and two men from Kerby, Oregon, tried to raise capital for a larger tourist business at Oregon Caves. Smith made outlandish claims about the cave and its business potential, saying that it was 22 miles (35 km) long, that an ordinary horse and buggy could be driven through 10 miles (16 km) of it, that it had 600 separate chambers, and that the company planned to build something like a streetcar line from Williams to the cave. Smith succeeded in wooing the The San Francisco Examiner, which twice sent reporters to the site. The second occasion involved a cave expedition that lasted about 10 days and involved "an orgy of destruction" in which passages were widened, formations broken or deliberately removed, and directional arrows added to the cave walls. After Smith had spent all of the company's money and borrowed more in its name, he disappeared in 1894, and the business collapsed.

Neither Burch nor Smith had owned the cave or the land around it, which belonged to the public. Beginning in the 1890s, the Federal government began regulating the use of public lands like these. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt designated millions of acres of forest lands for protection, including what became Siskiyou National Forest, which surrounds the cave. The United States Forest Service was created in 1905 to manage these reserves. Three years later, Congress passed the Antiquities Act, which allowed the President to designate protected areas called National Monuments on public lands. In 1909, President William Howard Taft established Oregon Caves National Monument, to be managed by the Forest Service. A year later the Forest Service employed men to guard the cave and to serve as tour guides.

Isolated and difficult to reach, the monument attracted only 1,800 visitors in 1920. The situation changed markedly when large numbers of Americans began to travel by automobile on roads paid for largely with government funds. One highway connected Grants Pass with the California coast at Crescent City. Another new road, the Oregon Caves Highway, led from the Grants Pass – Crescent City highway to the cave. Campaigns to attract car-driving tourists included those of the Cavemen, a booster group from Grants Pass that dressed in animal skins, posed along tour routes, and staged annual events to promote the monument. By 1928, the number of visitors to the cave had risen to about 24,000 a year.

The visitors' need for overnight lodging led to creation of public and private campsites and rustic cabins along highways near Cave Junction and the monument. In 1923, the Forest Service signed a contract with the Oregon Caves Company, based in Grants Pass, to run the cave tours and improve the park accommodations. The Chalet, a building with a kitchen, dining room, gift shop, ticket sales area, and a dormitory for women on the Oregon Caves Company staff, was completed later that year. Three years later, the company added seven two-bedroom cabins for tourists and a dormitory for male employees. In 1928, an Oregon Caves bill written by the Forest Service and introduced by Senator Charles McNary of Oregon won Congressional approval. It provided funds for electric lights, a power plant, a formation-washing system, and an artificial exit tunnel to eliminate the crowding that occurred when two groups on round-trip tours had to pass one another in the cave. The 500-foot (150 m) tunnel was completed in 1931.

Management of the monument was transferred from the Forest Service to the National Park Service in 1933, and a six-story hotel, the Oregon Caves Chateau, was completed at the site in 1934. Gust Lium, a builder from Grants Pass, oversaw construction of the Chateau and some of the park's other buildings, which he designed in a rustic style. Mason Manufacturing of Los Angeles produced the Chateau's furniture in a style called Monterey, valued in 21st century at up to $5,000 for a single chair. During the 1930s and early 1940s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) installed water and telephone lines, improved trails, and worked on landscaping at the park. The Chalet was rebuilt in 1942 to include a third story and a larger dormitory for women.

Although a flood in 1964 caused $100,000 in damage to the Chateau, it was repaired. By 1968, a total of one million people had visited the cave. In 1987, the Chateau was declared a National Historic Landmark. In 2001, the Park Service began running the cave tours formerly offered by private contractors, and two years later all the structures at the monument became public property managed by the Park Service. The Illinois Valley Community Development Organization, a non-profit based in Cave Junction, runs the monument's gift shop.