McHose & English Cave Update’s & Research

[Whitepanther]

In one way Covid killed momentum at English Cave. But looking back at it now had we not gotten holes in the ground and through cavern ceiling prior to quarantine it very likely could’ve become a dead project. Thankfully this recovery projects first phase got completed just in time preventing that from happening. I’m happy to report that there’s enough of a backlog of important updates and documents now that had dripped out too slowly up til now to get anyone jazzed up about this again and it’ll take a few days time to detail all of it. I’ll be asking one of the others if the forum for help getting images posted in here since I’m between PC’s and Flickr is great at everything except obtaining embed codes via mobile devices. To kick off the research thread and to get some of you thinking about English again I’m attaching two 3D links of the LIDAR scans of the cave. The first scan started within a half hour of our drilling contractor penetrating the cave on the second hole back in 2020. The second image is the result of a much longer scan time which provided more points in the data cloud of LIDAR. I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out the value of scan #1 because both have their distinctions and highlight various features better.

Among the discoveries made from LIDAR as well as panoramic views taken from hole #1 which was dubbed H1 and hole #2 dubbed H2 are as follows:
-Two drainage channels were painstakingly excavated at some point in the mid to late 19th century
-Carbon stains from lit torches for light are present all over the walls and ceiling and it’s been suggested by some that whale fat lamps were used in the latter years of the 1800’s
-Stalactites & stalagmites were chiseled off the caves floor and ceiling as suspected which stings a little bit because I grew up in caving but it was also a very different world back then so there’s that too
-The appearance of petroglyphs of some kind can be seen when zooming in on cavern walls from the panoramic views posted in another thread here.
-A pendant spring can be seen near the old Paul Wack bldg’s end of the garden with the dilapidated remnants of a barrel nearby and this is perhaps the most encouraging part about our 255’ long cave because that spring is mentioned in Wack classified ads dating back to 1900. In 122 years of dripping our little cave has zero traces of standing water and is somehow still connected with the much larger cave system that it was once part of.
-A very faint but distinct mound of dirt can be seen beyond H2 which is to the southern end of the cave near the Wack Wine bldg. That mound would be the location of Louis Bauer’s unfortunate 80’ fall to his death where the elevator once was. I don’t want to come off to anyone as if I’m being too insufferable here but Louis Bauer was at least on the list of UrbEx OG’s in St. Louis. It cost him the ultimate sacrifice which you never wanna see anyone succumb to but without that series of news articles and the details involved in them we still might not have an H1 & H2 right now. I hope to live to see the day where a plaque near the spot he fell to can commemorate his curiosity to see the cave just like so many of us want to.
-The remnants of either a handrail, water piping, or electrical conduit lies on the floor along the excavated drain channels. That’s a little funny to leave a little so wide open but it wasn’t until this weekend in chat that I even knew Wildbill999 suspected that lights were installed in the cave at some point as he believes he’s spotted something on the floor that could potentially be a primitive battery. Nothing at this point would surprise me.
-A false floor was constructed at some point near H2 and the dilapidated barrel remains near the spring on the ceiling sits atop it.
-While there’s only about two or three I could spot near the drainage channels, at least some small part of you has to love that even though it’s not had anything to do with the cultivation of mushrooms in at least a century there a few still visible today.
-Last but not least. If this were a television show instead of a forum thread I’d hit you with one of them long commercial break teasers. But since it’s not I’ll just blurt it out. LIDAR scan #1 revealed some potential confirmation UO’s own Wildbill999 had as far back as the 1980’s when a lot of us were busy being born. That data cloud’s furthest point to the north end showed parallel lines that one could easily interpret as stairs, and the trail ended at the threshold of the entrance to his garage believe it or not. There’s a sad part to this because many decades ago a street collapse occurred between the garden and his garage which was probably some type of ramp or staircase. It wouldn’t have been the infamous 50 stone steps but there’s two things worth mentioning about it. 1-it would significantly reduce the cost of constructing a new entrance if a positive identification of the last known staircase, it’s path in direction, and the stair pitch can be confirmed and 2-a hole with cribbing has been installed in said garage which is now at a depth of roughly 12’. The guesstimate of when we would hypothetically hit something solid like a set of steps is 4-6’ more than where we’re at now in depth. It’s too narrow for most of us due to either age or whatever to actually work in that tight of parameters while doing hard labor to put dirt in a bucket to be hoisted out. If you fit that thin wiry and willing description then you could help make history for what it’s worth.

Will have much more to share soon.


3D Image of LIDAR Scan #1
https://sketchfab.com/models/e29fda1f1 ... 0&camera=0

3D Image of LIDAR Scan #2 https://sketchfab.com/models/8a0122532e ... atermark=0

[nextel]

Thanks for the writeup and LIDAR info, truly fascinating stuff! If I wasn't so wary of caving, I could probably fit down there and dig it out lol. Would love to check some of the local caves out but don't really know where to start.

[Whitepanther]

Thanks for the writeup and LIDAR info, truly fascinating stuff! If I wasn't so wary of caving, I could probably fit down there and dig it out lol. Would love to check some of the local caves out but don't really know where to start.

There’s no shame in not loving tightness underground. Some people have comfort with heights that I’m jealous of which is no different. I do appreciate the nice words but it should go towards admin here more than me. Among the things I’m proudest of since this project began is that it’s what will eventually be known outside of this forum alone as the first ever joint project between affiliates of UrbEx & the National Speleological Survey. As overstated as that might sound this is actually the 4th installment of large scale attempts to recover this cave and without the steadfast intrigue in keeping English relevant on the forum here the Missouri chapter of the NSS or any of its grottos without that help would have been rendered irrelevant. Undergroundozarks deserves more praise than it’s gotten for this. As it stands now English recovery has been featured in 38 publications spanning across the country. When it made the Boston Globe I felt very humbled because none of this could’ve been possible without UO. Thanks again for the kind words and don’t hesitate to get involved. We need all the help we can get.

For those who hadn’t seen this yet here’s the Missouri History Museum’s documentary of the cave and drilling efforts.

https://youtu.be/TYP504y65Ls

[nextel]

I think I could get over the tightness, I just am inexperienced and haven't yet had the opportunity to go into many caves yet. Your note about the collaborative efforts between the UrbEx community and the NSS are quite intriguing, and I'll have to do some more research into the topic.

[Whitepanther]

One of the more peculiar developments on the McHose & English project has to do with the support of an anonymous researcher whom deals with Wildbill999 directly. Nobody else knows who it is. As awesome as it is to have them on board it really complicates the process of plotting things on a timeline or using them as citations when discussing the history. It's so strange to have any of wehat I'm about to share now because it would've really saved some time had we had this stuff pre drilling in 2020.

First up here is a sinkhole survey of the park in Benton Park and as stated I'df tell you a year or where it came from if I knew. What's interesting is the word Lyon Park with Lyon crossed out. Remember that because I'll expand on how that's not the only instance of this. Suspected date of survey is late 1860's to mid 1870's.

In private discussions behind the scenes I mentioned dozens of times that this would happen. We'd find the cave first and outta nowhere a survey of it would mysteriously appear. Being from an anonymous researcher on top of it is just icing on the cake. There's speculation that Julius Pitzman had some involvement in creating it. The date would have to be after 1895 when Paul Wack was up and running given the word elevator. Regardless of what it says, I'll never be convinced there were air shafts for the cave because it had already been trimmed down to 255' in length and because cave's breath naturally. Yes it's possible to come across cave's with bad air or low oxygen levels but that's generally miles from the closest entrance and very specific limestone strata conditions at least to the best of my knowledge anyway. There's a few in here who are far more educated in geology and karst who can maybe give their opinions which I'd be happy to hear even if they don't agree with my gut reaction. Anyway I've always felt as though Paul Wack ripped out broken fixtures he didn't feel like replacing when attempting to sell such as the windmill and windlass and only then were they called air shafts. That's simply my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

Another gem here that appears to have a staircase next to the word cave which would be situated today where the Schollmeyer Bldg yard to the south is. That bldg sits at Illinois & Arsenal.

Image overlay by the secret weapon of the project named Eric

Full pan of image overtlay by Eric

Location where elavator once was and site where Bauer fell nearly 80'.

False floor in my opinion. Open to alternate theories.

Mushrooms!

Staircase or ramp feature which is a dead ringer for a newspaper illustrution from 1880's

Pipe?

We'd call it graffiti by today's standards but officially speaking Tavern Rock Cave had the same thing done by members of the corps of discovery and those markings were designated by archeologists as petroglyphs. These theoretically could easily be from that same half of the 19th century. At least it's not spray paint though right!

Sooted walls and ceiling

Details on image shows how to set LIDAR 3D Image settings to obtain this view.

A humorous view from LIDAR 3D build while playing around with variou layer templates and colors reaveals what I tease Wildbill999 about being one of the cave gods. Ironically this view is facing the direction of his home.

Pendant spring discovered inside the cave next to the dilapidated remains of a barrel

One of the layer features of the 3D image build from LIDAR

Street collapse to left and some type of ramp or staircase shown from overhead view of LIDAR.And it appears to have once gone to Wildbill999's garage!

View of LIDAR 3D build from ramp or staircase feature looking south into cave.

To be honest I don't think I've met the gentleman in the hole here but this is a good way to highlight why it will take a certain frame body to work on this to get any deeper than we're at now. Current depth is roughly 13'!

[Whitepanther]

Drilling Part 2 Winter 2022

This will likely sound strange but we’re also in the planning stages of another drilling project at English. This plan is subject to change but as of now it’s a go by end of this year. Currently we’ve got two 2” holes. And unfortunately we’ve already exhausted the resources available to us with that diameter of an opening to do underground reconnaissance. If one were to take off the rose colored glasses for a moment what becomes pretty apparent is the requirement to keep a practical approach to solidifying a future entrance that provides safe human entry. Overestimating what type of fundraising can be done is negligent on some level and not fair to anyone donating money for one concept only to have it watered down later. That’s why the tentative plan is to enlarge the existing holes to 4” diameter as our next step even though it sounds redundant. Estimated costs of sinking a 60” shaft with a secured ground level entry is anywhere from $50-$150k which quite frankly isn’t going to happen without receiving a grant and I doubt we’d get approval for something that’s privately owned by the neighborhood association. What the 4” diameter allows for is the use of small rovers that can be mobile instead of dropping cameras that have to stay in one of two spots. By doing more reconnaissance work to establish exactly what is going on with the northern end of the cave and seeing what shape it’s in, it provides the highest percentage chance of getting enough data to re-establish a formerly used entrance like the one shown in the recently found survey that shows a staircase. Even if that staircase terminated in a neighboring yard we still might be able to break through it by a water auger or a backhoe. The water augering isn’t too terribly invasive but to sell the powers that be on a backhoe we need to be really certain where to place it and would only get one shot at it.

That’s about it for the most up to date info. Will try to put future updates here in this thread and encourage anyone who wants to help to do so. I know some asked about that when the thread titled A Walk Through Benton Park was posted and I really wasn’t blowing anyone off at the time, Covid and the need to drill without alerting the city was just a difficult needle to thread.

[Chubz]

thanks for the update WP. Really enjoy all the information that has been provided by you and Bill on this forum. Also glad to see the project hadn't died after not seeing any updates for a year.

[Whitepanther]

thanks for the update WP. Really enjoy all the information that has been provided by you and Bill on this forum.

Thanks Chubz. UO deserves the credit as much as either of us. But I know that’s preaching to the choir. If you ever wanna get involved you know you’re more than welcome my man.

[Nicotti]

Awesome update!

One small thing (big thing). I think Eric has the cave too far to the left(east). I've done paper to digital assessors maps in the past. Looking at the drawing that line by the cave appears to be a block center line. Assuming the eastern road on the drawing is Lemp Ave, the center line would be on Illinois Ave. But if you stick to the overlay, then that line probably goes down the alley. I can't say for sure, but usually lines like that'll line up with property lines. Do you have a image of the full drawing including all the text in the lower left and stuff on the right, that I could look at?

Full pan of image overtlay by Eric

[Whitepanther]

Awesome update!

I think Eric has the cave too far to the left(east).

Full pan of image overtlay by Eric

Precisely the kind of feedback I was hoping for. Thanks for lending your expertise to this. Circling back to the “A Walk Through Benton Park” thread there was a tan colored survey with purple boundary lines on it and on the survey was the words “McHose & English Cave”. That image was made using Google Earth’s land area size feature to get each tract as close as humanly possible to each being 2.50 acres but that was also after they moved from the park. Anyway the part about that image is the westernmost tract after moving from the park should be really close to being on the money and yes you are absolutely right about Eric’s map and it should actually have been stretched to the east to be equal to where Wisconsin is on the other side of Wyoming. I realize me typing the description without looking at it might be confusing but I’ll add the image here later if I get time for reference. That tract though was owned by McHose & English the whole time and though I once believed that the original entrance was in the park just west of where the pond is today, I no longer think that was the case. I will also try to hunt down the original email that came from but it would appear our anonymous researcher is a better researcher than they are photographer because that bend in the page of the cave survey literally killed any chance of accurately being able to place it into an image overlay by using the streets sketched on it for Wyoming & Arsenal. There’s no way the researcher could’ve known how critical that part was to be fair though.

Now you’ve got me wondering about the street centerline being the legal boundary I maybe should’ve used on the survey where the land area was measured. Survey markers are typically at the beginning of the property but you are right about the legal description of said property which almost always reads centerline of street.

[Nicotti]

Also are you aware of this type of robot? https://youtu.be/qevIIQHrJZg?t=422 I'm not sure how long they can be, but you might look into if it would work for your situation.

[SubLunar]

Absolutely fucking awesome stuff.

WP: I am always one billion percent interested in and motivated to do whatever digging or research or whatever to help. It's been far too long since I was out there. Text me anytime you guys are working or just need a hand with something. I have a really hard time trying to catch up with the email thread we have going on since you have to read each email in chronological order to understand WTF is going on. So I have probably missed out on some things. Just know it's not for lack of interest or motivation. Hit me up anytime. The only thing that would keep me from joining in is family obligations.

[Nicotti]

Any updates on this since last year?