English's Cave - oil on canvas 1840

Urban exploration in St. Louis, Missouri
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Nicotti
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Re: English

Post by Nicotti »

Would that be this or no:

Image
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

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SubLunar
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RE: English's Cave - oil on canvas 1840

Post by SubLunar »

I thought the same thing about it being the cave when I first found similar pictures, but yeah it is in fact the bridge and not the cave. This has been thoroughly verified.
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RE: English's Cave - oil on canvas 1840

Post by SubLunar »

Here's a few Benton Park images I've gathered over the years.

As much as it looks like a cave entrance, it's really just the bridge in the satellite photo Nicotti posted above.
SubLunar wrote:Image

Image

Image

Image


Image
Note the island.

Image

The island is visible on the right. Note the walkway leading down. The bridge is to the right in this photo.
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Nicotti
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Re: English

Post by Nicotti »

Well crap. Good find anywho Scott.
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
-Ayn Rand
Scott2822
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Re: English

Post by Scott2822 »

Out of curiousity, what was that "grotto" thing used for? The fact that no one has been in English Cave in over 100 years, drives me nuts. I have read all the info you could possibly read that exists, it is awesome to go that park and imagine whats underneath it. I read one account of someone going in there in the early days of the cave and seeing one of the old lagering casks completly petrified in limestone!
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RE: English's Cave - oil on canvas 1840

Post by SubLunar »

Scott2822 wrote:Out of curiousity, what was that "grotto" thing used for?


Currently they just store park related stuff in there.
Scott2822 wrote:The fact that no one has been in English Cave in over 100 years, drives me nuts. I have read all the info you could possibly read that exists, it is awesome to go that park and imagine whats underneath it. I read one account of someone going in there in the early days of the cave and seeing one of the old lagering casks completly petrified in limestone!
Amen.
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Re: English

Post by Scott2822 »

Is it true that one of the original entrances is in someones backyard in that area, and a very large tree has grown over it? In "Lost Caves" there is a picture of Hubert trying to get in with a pick axe, but does not say where he is.
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Re: English

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Scott2822 wrote:Is it true that one of the original entrances is in someones backyard in that area, and a very large tree has grown over it?
That's a rumor which I don't believe has ever been substantiated.

I'm not the expert on English, but I've learned a lot since I joined Underground Ozarks. We won't stop 'til we find it.
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Re: English

Post by the_p0ssum »

SubLunar wrote:
Scott2822 wrote:Is it true that one of the original entrances is in someones backyard in that area, and a very large tree has grown over it?
That's a rumor which I don't believe has ever been substantiated.

I'm not the expert on English, but I've learned a lot since I joined Underground Ozarks. We won't stop 'til we find it.
From this RFT article:

"It's more likely the cave's opening is outside the park. Brandt claims he has found it by examining old maps and real estate records, but declines to say where it is because it's on private property. More discouraging for cave-hunters is that somebody planted a tree over the entrance, which Brandt estimates is 50 years old and fifteen feet in diameter. "Unless the property becomes available and you dig up the tree, you're not going to find the entrance," he says, "and the owners aren't selling anytime soon."

The paragraph right below that one then goes on to offer another entrance as posited right her on the site. :D
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Re: English

Post by Scott2822 »

I think its all a conspiracy with the city of st. louis, something tells me the city dumped something in their that no one needs to know about. for example, toxic waste, cholera victims, jimmy hoffa........something. This was supposed to be the greatest cave under st. louis, why has it been lost?
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Re: English

Post by crazydrummerdude »

If I claimed to know where the entrance to the cave was and told someone at the RFT, that doesn't mean I actually know where it is.

Also, if I knew where it is, I wouldn't tell anyone the right location.

Food for thought.

By the way, if you want to know who Joe from MVG is, it's not hard to find him, and even go caving with him.
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Re: English

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the_p0ssum wrote:From this RFT article:

"It's more likely the cave's opening is outside the park. Brandt claims he has found it by examining old maps and real estate records, but declines to say where it is because it's on private property. More discouraging for cave-hunters is that somebody planted a tree over the entrance, which Brandt estimates is 50 years old and fifteen feet in diameter. "Unless the property becomes available and you dig up the tree, you're not going to find the entrance," he says, "and the owners aren't selling anytime soon."

The paragraph right below that one then goes on to offer another entrance as posited right her on the site. :D
Yeah seen that.

Problem is, we've all scoured every available real estate record or map that we could get our eyes or hands on in the past several years. There is no way to definitively pinpoint the exact entrance. There is no X marks the spot. And maps from that time don't exactly line up perfectly with the streets of today either.
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RE: English's Cave - oil on canvas 1840

Post by SubLunar »

Another theory is that the secret opening was actually underground. Mark Sarich, a Benton Park resident and amateur historian, says that tunnels once connected English Cave to the Lemp and Cherokee Caves in a network that extended more than three miles to the old Federal Reserve Bank downtown. These same tunnels may also have connected English Cave to a cottage on Lemp Avenue that Sarich believes was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Then you have stupid theories like this that only confuse the situation that much more. It's well known that the Cherokee cave was full of debris that had to be excavated when they opened it for the museum attraction that it was at one time. So even if they were connected, which isn't entirely unlikely, they certainly weren't traversable.
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Re: English

Post by the_p0ssum »

SubLunar wrote:Problem is, we've all scoured every available real estate record or map that we could get our eyes or hands on in the past several years. There is no way to definitively pinpoint the exact entrance. There is no X marks the spot. And maps from that time don't exactly line up perfectly with the streets of today either.
Why would the streets not line up? And property lines should always match up since surveys have to "close" within a few inches to be valid and not create title problems.

I don't know how the city stores it's data (or what's accessible), but if you've got a pretty good idea of where the entrance should be then the best bet is to go research the deeds for that area. It's pretty common for lenders to require surveys on a property, and if you can find one that's old enough to list the entrance then...bam! Plus, the surveys should all have dimensions from a known reference point, which would make pinpointing it pretty simple.

Just a thought...
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Nicotti
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Re: English

Post by Nicotti »

Assuming the point they did the survey off of is still there and they didn't have to arbitrarily make a new one (which I've seen before), I totally agree with the possum.
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
-Ayn Rand
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