Dr. Greg Brick
Mushroom Valley’s nightclub era began as Prohibition (1919–1934) was winding down. There were two nightclubs here in the 1930s: Mystic Caverns and Castle Royal. A local mushroom grower recalled “the bumper-to-bumper cars that poured past here day and night to those nightclubs.” Oliver Towne called Mushroom Valley “one of the oddest night club belts in the world.” Mystic Caverns—not […]
Chute’s Cave, in Minneapolis, operated as a show cave from 1876 to 1880 (conservatively estimated). A newspaper advertisement for Chute’s Cave, from the Saint Paul and Minneapolis Pioneer-Press and Tribune, August 26, 1876, is transcribed below. Although there are earlier newspaper advertisements for Fountain Cave, in St. Paul, dating back to 1852, they are very […]
I felt chagrined at one of the NSS conventions a few years ago, when, having just given a slideshow about St. Paul’s Fountain Cave in the Spelean History Session, a well-known speleohistorian (who shall remain nameless) got up to speak at the American Spelean History Association lunch meeting that followed. He referenced, among other things, […]