Seligman Cave??

[ans015]

A cousin of mine showed me an excellent cave east of Seligman MO. I think the area is called butler holler. the cave was about a mile of passage ways.. does anyone know of this cave.. it has a room where the ceiling fell in and is very interesting. Are there any other caves in butler holler?

[RedRook]

There's a cave marked on the Topos right next to Seligman called McCann Cave. It looks to be directly behind someone's house, so I doubt you'll get in without their permission. Most of the caves I know about are a good distance North East of there. I don't know anything about McCann or the cave you mentioned. I know Jammer_Smith will be highly interested in anything you find in that area, and he'd probably give you quite a few more locations as well.

[RedRook]

I did a tiny bit of research between builds. It looks like it may be "Big Cave"
http://nwaatvrc.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... r-Camp.pdf

There also seems to be a ton of information about the Lost Radium Mine being nearby as well. I've heard of that before, but I never knew that was where it was supposed to be. Some discussion with sources you might find at the library is here:
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/t ... 1237047860

It looks like the Radium Mine is actually in "Radium Hollow"/"Radium Springs" right here:
Radium Hollow

[ans015]

Thanks RedRook!! that's some interesting information, the cave my cousin showed me maybe closer to that radium spring you mentioned. The other "Big Cave" mentioned seems interesting, i'll have to compare that map to google earth to see if that maybe it. Im thinking that maybe a comletely different cave.

[ans015]

The "Big Cave" seems very close to the cave i was shown, its on national Forrest land. I came across an old timer in his truck and he mentioned there were 3 caves in that small area that he knew of. So it could be the cave i was shown, or a completely different cave! Thanks for the investigation RedRook, i couldve never found that info!

[ans015]

Also by comparing the county RD names on google earth I can get an idea of where the Onyx cave is, I know of an Onyx Cave thats a show cave in Arkansas. The Radio Activity and Radium mine and spring is also very interesting. Thanks again RedRook

[RedRook]

In reality, "Big Cave" could have different names as well. You'll find that different sources rename caves all the time, and since they don't tend to be on public maps, there is no definitive source to limit the name to just one thing. Onyx Cave also seems to be one of the most popular names for caves all over the Ozarks, I'm not sure why. I hope you find more out there.

[jammer_smith]

Did you go find the "Big Cave". After doing a bit of picking around I found a Cave called "Carter Cave" at the same location as the Big Cave on RedRooks image. The cave appears on only one of the like 6 different topo maps layers I have, weird, but there it is.

[moarkexplorer]

I went out and explored this area for a few hours earlier today, and came across two caves in the area of Onyx Cave. One was gated which I assume was Onyx, and then found another a short ways further on but we didn't get far in as the entrance passage required crawling though water which we weren't feeling up for at the moment, although it did look like it may have opened up a bit maybe 10-15 feet further. Then we ventured on down towards where Big Cave was shown on that map, while stopping constantly and exploring off the sides of the road without much luck. Finally we made it to what I think could be the entrance to Big Cave, but it had a large pool of water, not sure if that's normal or just from all the recent rainfall. Here's a few pictures of what I came across today.

Onyx Cave entrance?
http://i.imgur.com/aZsvrWQ.jpg

Second cave-wet entrance- Near Onyx
http://i.imgur.com/nvFOUMx.jpg

Opening near where Big cave was shown on map RedRook posted
http://i.imgur.com/TxiUrtT.jpg

[ans015]

Excellent pics Moarkexplorer! Thanks to the redrooks maps I also found the "Big Cave" and it looked good walking up to it, but just like you it was filled with water kinda like Roaring river. Maybe it was cuz the rains. I haven't made it over to the Onyx cave area. I do know of another cave near big cave that is really good.

[moarkexplorer]

Thanks! I plan on heading down there again next week during some time off work. Any chance you could message me with coordinates of where this other cave is approximately? I would like to check it out while I'm down there if possible.

[ans015]

Check your inbox!

[moarkexplorer]

So I went back out here today and checked out some other caves I had seen mention of in this general area, along with the two caves you messaged me about, ans015. We explored the large cave for a while, but I'm sure we missed plenty of stuff. That room with the sinkhole opening is really cool though! After we exited, we made a point of climbing up to the sinkhole entrance and looking down in from there.

Also, from Big Cave, we went around to the left and climbed up and back further and ended up finding another cave with a couple entrances further up the hill. We explored for a short ways back and came to a room with a ledge on the right side and a hole in the floor that would obviously require rappelling down(and there are already anchor points driven into the rock at the top). It's a bit of a long shot, but I wonder if that connects somewhere to the same cave that is known as Big Cave further down. Either way, I really wish i had some rappelling gear and the experience to use it. I've attached a picture of the hole in this post. You can barely make out my buddy on the other side at the very top of the frame for scale.

[slow_walker]

I grew up in Seligman and I remember many, many times as a kid we would wake up early on a Saturday morning, drive down Butler and at a certain point turn right and drive off the side of the road, across a field, over a creek bed and through another field to a cave where we'd park and have a campfire breakfast.

Coming out of the cave was a tiny dry creek (I guess) that was filled with polished river rock. We carried so many of those home over the years and I don't have any of them to show for it. I'm betting they're all over the backyard of my childhood home.

Anyway, I have no idea what the name of the cave is/was or even how to describe how to get to it but I'd probably recognize it if I poured over Google maps. So I guess I really have nothing important to say on this thread other than man I had an awesome childhood and didn't realize it at the time. We did shit like that constantly and never thought about taking pictures or keeping mementos.

I do remember, however, that at one point long past my childhood the cave was blocked off and there was some excavating going on there for Indian artifacts I believe. A little brother to someone I went to school with got busted for breaking in and destroying some of their work... now I must wander off and try to find that newstory.

Okay, I'm back and couldn't find anything but it was seriously like forever ago - mid to late 90's maybe? I'll ask my brother if he remembers any details.

[slow_walker]

I grew up in Seligman and I remember many, many times as a kid we would wake up early on a Saturday morning, drive down Butler and at a certain point turn right and drive off the side of the road, across a field, over a creek bed and through another field to a cave where we'd park and have a campfire breakfast.

Coming out of the cave was a tiny dry creek (I guess) that was filled with polished river rock. We carried so many of those home over the years and I don't have any of them to show for it. I'm betting they're all over the backyard of my childhood home.

Anyway, I have no idea what the name of the cave is/was or even how to describe how to get to it but I'd probably recognize it if I poured over Google maps. So I guess I really have nothing important to say on this thread other than man I had an awesome childhood and didn't realize it at the time. We did shit like that constantly and never thought about taking pictures or keeping mementos.

I do remember, however, that at one point long past my childhood the cave was blocked off and there was some excavating going on there for Indian artifacts I believe. A little brother to someone I went to school with got busted for breaking in and destroying some of their work... now I must wander off and try to find that newstory.

Okay, I'm back and couldn't find anything but it was seriously like forever ago - mid to late 90's maybe? I'll ask my brother if he remembers any details.

Okay, talked about all this with my parents over Thanksgiving and I had a few facts wrong. The polished rocks were a result of radium mining that was done there. And there's another thread on this forum about radium mines where I had already talked about this place. I totally forget. http://www.undergroundozarks.com/forum/ ... hp?p=52636

I got a couple of stories mixed up though. The place down Butler where a dude got busted for vandalizing a dig site was not the radium mine. According to my dad it was a place in the area known as Barrel Springs and the dig was for Indian artifacts.

Dad also clarified while the mine isn't as easy to get to as it used to be (due to flooding which has washed out creek crossings and roughed up the already rough roads) it is not locked up as private property. It's government property and can be accessed. He said maybe next spring he'll haul his Gator down there and we can use it to get to the mine so i can take pics. We'll see how that goes.

We were discussing all this while we were taking a drive through Butler on Thanksgiving morning to just spend some time together and look for deer. My family has always loved just going backroading.

While we were down there, he drove through a few fields to show me some smaller caves he remembered from when he used to deer hunt in the area.

This first one is interesting because as you go up to it and look into you see it actually slopes down pretty good. He said he's never been in it, but he remembers stories about how after hard rains the strangest things have been found coming out of this hole. Like corn husks when there's no farmed land anywhere around, etc.

The other pictures are just normal little caves. One of them looked like it was an active home to some sort of small wildlife. Not super exciting, really, but since I hadn't gotten out to see anything in quite a while I really enjoyed this little trip.