Since I am a lazy ass I'll let Wikipedia introduce the location.
"The Carthage Underground is a collection of marble quarries in Carthage, Missouri, most of which is presently owned by Americold Logistics. They currently hold 43,000,000 square feet (4,000,000 m2) of the quarry, much of which is occupied by warehouses or factories, primarily for food production. The total area of the underground is difficult to trace, but is rumored to stretch as far as Joplin, Missouri (roughly 20 miles (30 km) from Carthage). It is frequently visited by Urban Explorers due to the decrepit abandoned quarries mixed seamlessly with working underground factories and warehouses. Many of the local industries rely heavily upon the facilities to store foodstuffs there. It is also oddly present with an ecological system of its own, with underground lakes hosting turtles, fish and various other species. This could be seen as remarkable given that the quarries were utterly devoid of life before the mining industry."
I met up with a friend and local explorer by the name of Kyro for this expedition.
The first exploration of the night (other than a few interesting but otherwise unremarkable drains) was a man made storage cave currently used by one of the large factories in the area. Normally we would have headed straight to one of the more interesting locations, but the padlock had recently disappeared from the doors so we thought it was worth a look while it was still open.
The doors:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02366.jpg
From the inside:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02357.jpg
The room in it's entirety:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02349.jpg)
After wandering around taking pictures for a while we decided to head out to an old fallout shelter Kyro had discovered about a week before. Getting there involved sneaking past a rail yard and walking down the tracks for a mile or so to a disused driveway with "No Trespassing" signs strung across it.
The bridge and railyard:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02368.jpg
The entrance:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02395.jpg)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02374.jpg
An old truck just outside that has clearly been flooded at some point.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02383.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02392.jpg
Getting into this place was a little tricky but after a while we managed to find a nondestructive way in. Turns out the place is a section of limestone/marble mine that has been walled off and used for storage by a manufacturing company. There must have been millions of dollars of old machinery in there. We walked around for hours and still didn't see all of it.
Machinery:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02432.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02419.jpg
I'm pretty sure this one manufactured mattress springs:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02495.jpg)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02446.jpg
Control panel:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02423.jpg
One of four forklifts. (yes it runs)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02408.jpg
Apparently they made automotive stuff too:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02507.jpg
Trying to be artsy:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02505.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02499.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02497.jpg
An underground semi trailer:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02409.jpg
More machinery inside:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02483.jpg
Me:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02441.jpg
After wandering around this area for a while, we realized there was another door set into the back of the cavern. The high water mark on the brickwork shows just how flooded the caverns can get.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02479.jpg
Turns out it led into the underground proper.
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02451.jpg)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02450.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02475.jpg
I actually don't have many pictures of the underground because by the time we found the door my camera battery was pretty drained and I realized I had forgotten the spare.
This is what happens when you dump trash in a sinkhole:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02470.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02464.jpg
Mining equipment of some sort:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02473.jpg
To the surface:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02466.jpg
Kyro and I went back to Carthage the next weekend to check out some more of the underground, but first we found a distraction.
On the way to the underground we noticed a building that seemed to be abandoned. Turns out it is a marble processing place for the marble that used to come out of the quarry.
One of two big marble cutting machines in the building:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02540.jpg
Sub-par pictures of the machinery used to run the cutters.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02550.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02551.jpg
My big tool (Yes, I'm a horrible person):
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... 2546-2.jpg
Eventually we made our way outside where there was a bigass crane we had somehow failed to notice on the way in:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02562.jpg)
Well, apparently neither of us are very smart because we decided to climb the thing.
Did I mention it was windy? You can kinda see how quickly the clouds were moving in this picture. (it was a 10 second exposure)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02555.jpg
So by the time the two of us made it to the top of this thing we were shaking and couldn't do much but lay flat and stare through the grating that made up the floor of the platform. It doesn't look that tall at all until you actually get on top of the thing
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the thing around way too much to get any good pictures from the top.
We eventually made it back to the bottom and had a nice conversation composed mostly of some variation of the phrase "holy shit!" until we finally decided to continue exploring. We would have gotten some more pictures of the area at the bottom of the crane, but during our exploration of the control room we discovered that the crane is still functional and that it is powered by a nice loud motor. We shut the thing off and moved on pretty quickly after that.
As far as I can tell the section of the underground we explored the second time isn't even connected to the first, which is cool because it makes me wonder if there might be more. Anyway..
The entrance:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02643.jpg
Just inside:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02564.jpg)
The ramp to the bottom level:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02575.jpg
The water is amazingly clear and an odd shade of blue:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02566.jpg)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02565.jpg
I'm assuming this pipe was used as ventilation and just had a ladder as an escape route or something. Whatever the reason, it led to a blocked off tunnel in the bottom level.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02594.jpg
Looking down:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02577.jpg
At the bottom: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02584.jpg
One end of the tunnel ran into this collapsed/back filled passage and the other went right into the underground lake that used to be the second level.
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02592.jpg)
Back up:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02579.jpg
This used to be a truck until the ceiling fell on it:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02637.jpg
The cab:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02638.jpg
A bottle turned cave formation:
![Image](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Veruth/Carthage/DSC02635.jpg)
Experimental drinking water?
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... C02607.jpg
And that's it. I know I have a few more pictures from the underground, and I know Kyro has some interesting ones too, so I'll probably get those up if I can figure out what I did with them.