Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico / The Story of its Early Explorations, as told by Jim White

PICTURES PROVE JIM'S STORY

Jim White’s first descent into the cave was in 1901. During the next few years he was unable to convince anyone of the attractions of the cave sufficiently to have them pay much attention to its beauty. But as early as 1903 interest developed in the guano known to be there. In that year Abijah Long filed a placer mining claim to guano and other mineral rights for twenty acres around the entrance to the caverns. This claim is recorded in the Eddy County Mining Records. Again in 1908, and later in 1910 and 1912, other placer mining claims were filed on land in the vicinity of the cave entrance. This land was never patented. However, the land to the east, over the Bat Cave, belonged to the Santa Fe Railroad and was sold in 1905, and ownership of this forty acres changed hands a number of times before it was finally acquired by the government.

Jim continued to work on the ranch for awhile, but when the guano operations began, his interest in the cave induced him to go to work for the company removing the fertilizer. Although it is estimated that about a hundred thousand tons of guano were removed from the Bat Cave between 1903 and 1923, it was probably not a very profitable operation; for at least six different companies had a fling at it. Jim worked for all but one of them off and on, and never did any more than just make a bare living.

Through all these years Jim White made frequent efforts to convince someone—anyone who would listen—about the wonders he had seen beyond the cave entrance, beyond the rooms containing the guano. Despite his failure to win more than casual interest, whenever there was a lull in the guano business, he would take food and other supplies and explore more of the cave. In fact, Jim succeeded in getting some of the miners to explore the cave with him during their spare time, as is proven by the prevalence of names and dates (1904 to 1911) smudged on the ceilings, walls and rocks as far into the caverns as the King’s Palace.

One day came the thought that if he could get a photographer to make the trip with him, he could show photographic proof to the world of his now-favorite scene of adventure. His first attempt met with failure simply because the man who had the camera wanted a hundred dollars for the trip. Jim didn’t have a hundred dollars.

Along about 1920, economic conditions were mighty bad. Jim and Mrs. White were living in a shack near the cave entrance. Jim was always up at daylight, following the youthful custom long-ago established on the ranch. One morning, however, Jim didn’t rise with the dawn. For one of the few times in his married life, Mrs. White was up first.

She made coffee, then returned to the bedroom door somewhat alarmed, and asked:

“Jim, I’ve never known you to stay in bed so late ... are you sick?”

Jim laughed reassurance. “I’ve just been layin’ here since day-break, thinkin’. I’ve made up my mind I’m going to get out of this bed and start showing people that cave, whether they want to see it or not!”

“How are you going to do it?” Mrs. White inquired.

“Right now I don’t know,” Jim stated. “But when I get up, I’m going to start”.

The Iceberg—One of the interesting features of the Caverns

Jim lay still a little longer. The idea came that if the world could be made to see the cave, trails and guard-rails ought to be built, to gain even a relative amount of safety and accessibility. Jim rose, dressed, ate breakfast and started. He began moving rocks and leveling passageways through the first chamber. At dangerous ledges he searched out cracks in the rocks, into which he drove discarded axles from old automobiles. From one of these to another, Jim strung galvanized wire to serve as hand-holds. Working alone most of the time, he seemed tirelessly ready for an endless task, constantly buoyed by the thought that he was building a pathway over which many others might travel, into the incredibly beautiful fairyland so far below the hot desert.

Strange how much a man’s vision and energy can drive him to achieve! Strange, too, that Jim White’s consuming purpose was to lure an apparently disinterested world to see what he had seen—perhaps in order to justify his years of insistence that the place did exist somewhere beyond his own imagination. The world simply had to see this magnificent spectacle into which he had first crawled.

Working in the cave those countless hours and continuing to explore until he had visited most of the present known areas, Jim White felt his awesome appreciation translated into something akin to love. He wanted to display it proudly to other approving, comprehending eyes—and watch them light with awe and wonder. Jim was an unlettered man, as were most of his associates, and no written record of his findings was made.

At last two young men, crossing the country in an old jalopy pulled up at the cave and asked Jim if there was a chance to see it! Chance? Jim White would be delighted to show them through, he explained. One of them had a kodak. When the young fellow asked about flashlight powder, Jim told him about his effort to get a photographer to record a picture-story of the cave. At Jim’s suggestion that flashlight powder might be found in Carlsbad, the youths started back to town, offering to see if they could find a photographer who would make the trip, taking for his pay the right to distribute pictures. An early-morning start into the cave the next day was planned by Jim White and the first two persons from the outside world who ever expressed a desire to see into the underground palaces!

Any human being in Jim White’s place would have felt as he did when his first three guests—the two young men and Ray V. Davis, the photographer they brought back from Carlsbad—started that stroll down the ageless corridors! Hearing their gasps of appreciation was to Jim White an accolade! Seeing their eyes was to find his belated, yearned-after justification. Listening to them as they tried and failed to express what they felt showed Jim White that at least three other men in the world felt about the caverns somewhat as he did. He must even have enjoyed hearing photographer Davis complain because there was no more film, for Davis had used all of his two-dozen plates within the first enthusiastic mile!

When the twenty-four pictures were developed and prints came before the eyes of former doubters in town, Jim White was besieged by those who wanted to take the trip through the cave. Red Wheeler and Harry Stephens persuaded Jim to organize an excursion party for the tour, and so it was that another “original thirteen” came to be recorded in the centuries old history of Carlsbad Caverns. Wheeler and Stephens were two, photographer Davis made three. The others in the original party were Luther Perry, E. H. Weaver, Dan Lowenbrook, Homer Grabb, Coly Jones, J. R. Yates, J. B. Morris, John Nevenger, J. R. Owen and C. P. Pardue, all of Carlsbad. Superstition was relieved by the fourteenth member of the party—Jim White, now Guide!

In those days, it was an all-day trip across the thirty miles of prairie and mountain to the mouth of the cave. The party reached Jim’s shack late in the afternoon, ate the supper Mrs. White had waiting, then bunked early to rest for the all-day trek scheduled for daybreak. The first sightseers were lowered by two’s ... Jim White at the winch ... his passengers in the bucket used by the guano company to get down into the Bat Cave. Down they went into the black shaft which was the doorway to beauty.

Passageway in the Hall of Giants

It never occurred to Jim White that he should charge admission to the cave, and when the party started back to town he refused to set a price. The guests insisted on paying something, if only for the food, for Mrs. White’s trouble in feeding and housing them, and Jim’s own trouble both in the shack and in the caverns. The discussion ended with each guest paying a dollar. The thirteen dollars Jim used to buy more materials—to carry his trail even deeper into the cave.

A few days later on the streets of Carlsbad, Jim was greeted by one of his “original thirteen” sightseers. “Jim, that cave of yours is the greatest sight of its kind you or I or anyone else ever saw. You should charge everybody you take through it, five dollars! Man, it’s worth it!”

The Scenic Drive Within Carlsbad Caverns National Park to the Caverns Entrance

Meantime, the thirteen had passed along the word until it seemed that everyone was begging to be taken through the cave. Jim was at last obliged to fix a price of two dollars, since visitors to the then isolated spot had to be fed, and as the numbers increased, bunkhouses had to be built. As a moneymaker, Jim White’s Cave was not a success in those early days, since equipment and accommodations outran the income, even at two dollars per person for the guided tours. Then there were the days when Jim would greet some poor old farmer with a wife and bunch of kids. The family would want to take the trip through the Cavern, now beginning to achieve local fame, but who obviously could not afford that two-dollars-each admission price. Since it would seem unfair to admit them without charge while making others pay, Jim White would simply declare that day as “A Free Day”.

Graceful, Sheer Draperies of Pure Crystalline Cave Rock

Jim White, the Guide, had the pleasure of taking the very poor and the very rich through the fairyland beneath the New Mexico desert. Jim White had fought for it so long he had become sentimental about the great Caverns.

In time people throughout the world learned of the fantastic beauty of the Caverns, and good roads became the pathways for awe-stricken thousands who arrived to gaze at what no man could explain completely—miraculous caverns that defy mankind’s vocabulary to describe.

By 1922 the scenic and scientific values of the caverns were of local and gradually expanding importance. Newspaper men and writers would always receive complimentary tours from Jim White, who realized that printed stories, in whatever publications, would have untold advertising value. The crowd read of the Caverns at Carlsbad—they heard of them from friends—and they gathered in increasing numbers to be lowered in the old guano-bucket. Jim White lifted nervous spinsters across narrow ledges, and pulled fat ladies up steep inclines. When his parties reached particularly dangerous spots, Jim’s body was always in a position to shield their eyes from the perils, so no one would become frightened, and make a misstep. In spite of the rickety and exciting descent in the old bucket, and the inadequacy of the trails, there was never an accident ... never so much as a broken arm or leg. There were some hairbreadth escapes, with Jim White’s firm hand grasping someone by the seat of the pants to prevent a sudden plunge into a pit.

News of the wonderful cave out on the desert southwest of Carlsbad finally reached Washington and the authorities decided to check up on it. In April, 1923, the General Land Office in Washington sent Mr. Robert Holley, a mineral examiner to make a survey. Jim keenly felt Mr. Holley’s original scepticism when the newcomer said: “We didn’t feel as though this cave was of much importance, but the Department thought I’d better run down and measure it, so they could know if it is big enough for them to consider”. Jim grinned and said little. The next morning Jim White lowered Mr. Holley and his instruments into the cavern for the first time. It took the government man over a month to finish his very complete and accurate work and report. Scepticism turned to enthusiasm, as is witnessed by the opening paragraph of his survey-report in which Mr. Holley stated:

“I enter upon the task of compiling this report with a feeling of temerity, as I am wholly conscious of the feebleness of my efforts to convey in words the deep conflicting emotions, the feeling of fear and awe, and a desire for an inspired understanding of the Divine Creator’s work which presents to the human eye such a complex aggregate of natural wonders in such a space”. In concluding, Mr. Holley said: “... it appears that this cave is of such wonderful character as to be worthy to be established as a national monument....”.

Crystal Spring Dome, Largest Growing Stalagmite in the Caverns

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