Chapter 13

THE STORY OF LOST RIVER

40 Miles of Underground River with
its Caves and Hidden Water Falls,
Blind Fish and Other Wonders.

Human nature holds so much curiosity about hidden mystery and unexplored regions of the world in which we live that the very mention of "Lost River" insprires a curiosity to know more and more about this underground river. I have heard an old traditional story of a girl whose eyesight was so acute that she could see to pick up a pin the darkest night. I have read a newspaper story of another gifted young lady who could read a letter without breaking the seal. I doubt these stories but they are no more mysterious and hard of comprehension that the facts that the X rays enable us to see the bones in our own hands.

So, a large portion of the curiousities of this underground river with its blind fish, transparent crickets, white crawfish and long legged green and white spotted frogs, will probably remain hidded for many generations unless some gifted mortal or some great discovery in science shall remove the vale and afford a full and unrestricted view of that portion of the Lost River now guarded by the Rock of Ages and the everlasting hills that up to this writing have said "thus far shalt thou go and no farther." I am going to give the reader as full and complete a history and desciption of Lost River as I have been able to collect from the sources at my command. I promise the reader a more complete story of the curiosities of Lost River than has ever been seen in print. My story will reveal all that scientific men have reported to the State of Indiana, after a full investigation, certified to by the State Geologist. In addition to all this I have obtained the statement of truthful men, who have reached and floated on its surface on rafts and boats and by the light of lanterns have viewed its rushing waters and nemerous large caves along its winding course. The story of these truthful men I now proceed to give the reader. Some of the men are still living and are among the best men of Orange County County. I am indebted to Moses F. Ham, Joel Halbert and Joseph Bruner for their version of an exploration made by them thirty years ago. The reader will now go with me to a place named Gulf, situated in Orangeville township, about nine miles Northwest of Paoli. The Gulf is one of the deep holes of the underground river. I visited the place some years ago. It would appear that the ground over the hidden river at this point had sink below the surrounding surface and down in the large basin this formed, is a pool of water said to be unfathomable and at that time beautifully clear and as blue as the deep sea. The pool I remember was not less that one hundred feet long and eighty or ninty feet wide. The water filled this beautiful opening and ran off in a little branch and disppeared in a cave about a hundred feet away.

About thirty years ago a few enterprising men living near the place determined, if possible, to reach the underground river through a cave on the side of the great sink hole that forms the Gulf. Ample preparation was made and at the appointed time, with laterns and a small raft, these men entered the opening never before penetrated save by wild beast or possibly wild men who had undisputed dominion until the coming of the pioneer white settlers. Soon by the dim light of their old fashioned lanterns, the river was visible to their wondering eyes. The stream was from forty to fifty feet wide and moved with a gentle current in a Southwest direction. The depth of the water was from five to eight feet. With a raftequipped with paddles and poles the journey was begun. On either hand solid limestone walls supported the broad ceiling from wight to twenty-five feet above their heads. The waters of the river at this visitation were beautifully clear and flowed so gently that the silence was almost alarming. At the stating point no sound but their own voices saluted their ears. Soon after starting a paddle dropped on the raft and the sound was magnified ten fold. A lick struck with a force sounded like a crack of a rifle. A loud yell or a big laugh echoed and re-echoed like the voice of some terrible giant. The current was so sluggish that it was necessary to paddle or push the raft in its course down stream. After proceeding in this way for half mile or more they heard in the distance a sound like a great water fall and concluded that something like the Niagara Falls was soom to be reached. The astonished explorers propelled the raft cautiously and put their lanterns in the best trim so as to see and avoid possible shipwreck of their frail craft. The sound grew louder and louder until their voices could scarcely be heard in the mighty roar. All at once they beheld not an abrupt fall, but a long rocky shoal; finally the overhead ceiling seemed to close down so near the water that all hope of proceeding further down the mysterious river was abandoned and the men returned to the raft at the upper end of the shoal. the raft was again brought into play and the slow and laborious work they toiled in until they reached the point where the hourney was begun. A counsel was held and a decision reached to the effect that on an appointed day the exporation would be resumed. For this purpose one of the party agreed to construct a skiff to be used in the place of the raft. On the appointed day the men returned, bringing a few of their friends and a skiff. The pary now turned their attention to exploring the stream upward instead of downward as on the former visit. After proceeding quite a long distance they came to a point where the river divides, one branch flowing off to the right, towards Orangeville is likely the rise that emerges at that place, while the former emerges on the Higgins farm where the two are reunited, never more to be separated and never more to be lost in the depth of the earth. After reaching the point where the river divides the explorers followed the right hand branch. In the cast walls of stone on either hand great door-ways opened and leaving the river they entered on of these open spaces and found themselves in a large cavern. An opening from this cave opened into a second one and this in turn into a third cave; all these being large and beautiful. The whole region seems to be a system of manificent caves. This branch of Lost River was explored as far downstream as the overhead ceiling permitted. Before returning the explorers caught some the far famed blind fish. The fish, although without eyes, are very wild and when one touches the water near them they are so sensitive to danger that they dodge and flee for life. For ages these beautiful fish have sported undisturbed in these underground water unaffected by the deed that God gave to man six thousand years ago giving him "dominion over the fishes of the sea and everything that moves on the face of the earth."

The curiousity of the reader is now aroused and a full history of all that is known about Lost River is demanded. This we now proceed to give from the best material at our command. The visitor to the Springs gets the first glimpse of Lost River as the train blows its whistle and makes the turn to the left revealing the grand new West Baden Hotel. Turning the eye to the North an old wooden bridge, spanning Lost River, is visible and through the tangled underbrush the waters of the mysterious river are seen majestically moving on their journey to the deep, deep sea. Nature has here raised an everlasting barrier of linestone bluffs as if to prevent the submergment of the West Baden Springs. As the river strikes these bluffs, as if making a last effort to get an underground passage, the course of the the river turns to the northwest, and a little lower down the water of French Lick Creek, through a narrow channel, make their entrance into Lost River. Had not Nature placed these eternal barriers of limestone bluffs at this point, the famous West Baden Springs would probably have risen from their hidden depths only to bubble forth their gasses in the waters of Lost River. Then there would have been no Mile Lick, and no beautiful West Baden Hotel. Over the magnificiant grounds now so full of human enterprise, activity and pleasure, perhaps a little lake saturated with all the escaping mineral water of the valley would mark the spot. This story is designed to unfold to the reader a conception of the mysterious river that winds its way towards the Gulf of Mexico, part of the way above the ground but many miles far below the surface, lost to view only to emerge with larger force, flowing on through fertile bottom lands until it enters White River near Haysville. The river rises in Washington County which borders Orange County on the east. It's winding course in Washington County is all open and above ground. Shortly after entering Orange county it whole volume is swallowed up by a cave. I quote from Goodspeed's History of Orange County, page 364, as follows: "Lost River makes its first sink on Section 4, Township 3 north, Range 1 east, upon reaching the eastern exposure of the concretionary limestone. It makes its second on Section 8, its third on Section 13. Township 3 north, Range 1 west, and its fourth on Section 11. In dry weather the first sink takes all the water, which is not seen again until it reaches Orangeville. Light rains will overflow the first sink and the surplus enters the second sink. Heavy and continuous rains will fill the dry bed from the second sink to Orangeville, as the subterranean passages are not of sufficient size. These passages are a complex system of mains and leads, and not a single channel through which the water rushes. They do not follow the course of the surface bed. On Sections 33 and 34, whenever the water is of sufficient quantity to enter the fourth sink, it rises through three openings and flows on through the dry bed. The underground stream may be reached at the fourth sink, where the cavernous opening is about eight feet wide and four feet high, the descent being gradual and 590 feet. The river comes to the surface on Section 9, here the subterranean stream may also be reached through a cave. At Orangeville is said to be the rise of Lost River, though it is probable that the true rise is on the Higgins farm, about a mile further down the stream." Goodspeed gives as his authority for the statement about Lost River the report made to the Stat Geologist E. T. Cox in 1875 by Dr. M. N. Elrod and Dr. E. S. McIntire, special geologist selected ti make the official examination of Orange County. This it will be observed that the name Lost Rver is no fiction, but that, for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles on a straight line the river makes it way, unseen to mortal eyes, and if the underground channel is as crooked as the dry bed, at least forty miles through caves and dark chambers, amid stalactite and stalagmite ornamentation, it makes its final return to the surface at Orangeville. It now flows on through some of the richest botton lands in the world, affording mill sites for the poineer settlers and an outlet to the markets of the world. The staple products of the pioneer period consisted of hoop-poles, staves, lumber, lime and bacon long before the advent of railroads. Every turn and bend; every shoal and every deep place in the river from Orangeville to its exit in White River, is known in every detail. But nature has baffled every effort to reveal all the shoals and falls of its underground passage. This underground wonder may remain one of natures secrets forever. Or some great geological change may lift the whole long underground channel above high water mark, leaving a dry cave for exploration, or the solid bottom over which the waters have rolled and foamed for thousands of years, may at last wear out and the waters fall to a channel far below the present one. I am lead to these reflections by a visit I made to Wyandotte Cave more that twenty years ago. The principle guide was a tall red headed, freckle-face man, som twenty-five or thrity years of age. He was quite communicative and told us all he knew about the cave, affirming confidently that the great cave now so dry and clean, with it temperature at 56 summer and winter, was simply a dry bed of a river that ages ago flowed through the winding pass way, stately rooms and high ceilings with its thousands of stalactitie and stalagmite curiousities. The change was brought about by some evolution of nature that either raised the river bed above its former level or else the waters found a new channel far below the one that bears the name of Wyandotte cave. If this theory be correct, future generations, thousands of years from now, may claim in the subterranean channel of Lost River a cave that shall be a rival to Wyandotte.

At Orangeville there is one of the largest and most beautiful Springs in the State. This spring is commonly considered the rise of the Lost Rise. The water springs from the earth with great force at the foot of a bluff of large limestone rock and affords water enough to turn a mill and to be dignified as a river. It is indeed a river of pure water, clear and cold, good drinking water the year around. The early settlers quenched their thirst here and built their log cabin homes near enough to this great spring to have the water for family use. In 1820 Jacob Shirley built the first Lost River mill at this place. This mill soon did away with tin graters and wooden mortars that made the first corn meal and hominy.

At the new mill the meal was made so easily and so fast that the old implements were thrown away and forgotten by the second generation. About a mile further down the Dry Bed another gush of water comes to the surfce. The two springs unite to form the resurrected Lost River, never more to be lost in the dark caverns of the earth. The waters flow on through sunshine and shade until, with thousands of other streams, it mingles forever with the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. On this historic river, since it discovery by white men, many industries have arisen and flourished for a time and then ceased, never more to be renewed. There was no railroad at that time and the river afforded the best and almost the only means of transportation. All along the river from its rise at Orangeville to its entrance into White River, thousands of hoop-poles and staves were conveyed to the river bank, loaded on flat boats and shipped to the South. Large quantities of bacon and venison hams went the same route. Millions of feet of lumber and hundreds of large rafts of sawed logs went out at every spring rise. So important were these thriving industries that the legislature passed an act declaring Lost River a navigable stream from it mouth to Orangeville. All along the river are limestone bluffs that make lime of superior quality. The ruins of hundreds of these lime kilns still mark the banks of the river. Fifty to sixty years ago smoke went up from these kilns and at the same time the sound of the saw and hammer echoed from one bend of the river to another as the busy mechanics rushed the work on the flat boats so as to be ready to go out in the spring rise, when the water would be high enough to carry boats and rafts of the three or four mill dams along the river. The work was done by the farmers as a means of raising money to pay for the rich bottom lands located along the river. It is proper to state here that the cottom lands along Lost River are as fine corn lands as can be found in America. Some fields, after having been under cultivation for seventy-five years still produce the same luxuriant crop of corn that they did when the woodman's ax first cleared away the heavy timer for corn and garden patch made by the pioneer settlers. Sixty years ago saw logs, lumber, hoop poles and staves and the great lime industry made this river of great commercial and industrial importance. At each returning spring rise there was a great rush to get ready all rafts and crafts that depended on high water to get safely out of the river and reach the southern market. Now all this is changed; not a flat boat has been seen on the river for twenty yers. No smoke arises from the lime kilns. The sound of toil and the rushing, bustling crowds of industrious men have all disappeared from the scenen. Railroads (not in existence at that time) have monopolized the carrying trade. The river has ceased to be important, save for fishing purposes. Thousands of fallen trees lie buried in the deep holes and brush and driftwood have so obstructed the channel that seining for fish is impossible. The fish are more securely protected than they could be by any fish law ever enacted. Long and hard the owners of the health resort fought a legal battle in the courts for the removal of the mill dams. They were not successful but the application of steam to machinery has made these dams unnecessary, the dams have hisappeared from the river and the larger fish from the larger streams below find easy access and a safe retreat in Lost River, making it the best stream for hook and line fishing to be found in the state. Fishing camps are being established along the river and the people from far and near come with hooks and line and enjoy the thrilling sport of fishing. The guest at the famous resort visit the river and join in the sport. Writing the story has stirred my poetic nature and I close with an original.