This is Joe Mazzurco of Company B 167th Infantry at Sheraton Inn in Springfield, Missouri. We're going to move over here to Dune Marsh, Greensboro, Alabama. He's Company B 167th Sergeant in the same squad that I was in. And this is Charlie Hunter, Tag Nauke, Kansas. I hope I pronounced that right. He was in the same squad. And then we've got Bill Marine, 1st platoon of Company B. And Norm Steely, 4th platoon of Company B. And this is Norm Steely of Company B, one of the machine gun squad, and Company B 167th Infantry. I'm going to get over here and talk to these guys. Joe Mazzurco, Kansas City, Kansas. And what's your wife's name? Marie. This is your first reunion with him, right? Yeah, yeah. First time. You joined the 31st Division where at? Shelby. Camp Shelby, Mississippi. That was 1943? I think so. 1943, you won over. I'm not sure. You won over C, and you were in Company B the whole time you got discharged. You never reenlisted or nothing like that before? No, no, no. That was the end of it right there. That was it for me. Okay. And what do you think about this reunion so far? It's real nice. You going to the banquet Friday night? No, I'm going to skip that. You're shipping out? Yeah. You're not going on any tours or anything? No. Okay. I want to just see the boys. Do you think you'll be able to make an extra reunion next year wherever you are? I hope so. Okay, you might have to drive for a couple days. Well. You might be way up. I don't know how hard it's going to be. Wait and see. We all, that's four or five guys been here. We've been together for three years already. Yeah. So we're getting new ones. They're coming along and we're getting a bigger crowd. We're going to have about 90 people here this year, but they're going to be most of them in 124th. We got about 24. We're going to have about 24 or 25 people here from Company B. 167th. That's good. You know, guys, we're going to move on up, okay? Hey, dude. Hey. Dude? Yeah. You're on camera right here now. Oh, no. And this is what, what? How many reunions have you been to? This is the third one. This is the third reunion. Yeah. And you've got a beautiful lady over there by the name of Julie, right? She's your wife, right? Right. How many years have you been married, Dune? About 48. 48 years. How many children do you have? Three. Three of them. All girls? Two boys and a girl. Oh, two boys and a girl. Okay. And you're going to attend all these reunions? Yeah. Are you going to attend all the shows you can while you're here? We're going to two. Two shows in the banquet? Yeah, in the banquet. Uh-huh. And then what day are you leaving? Saturday or Sunday? Sunday. Oh, you're going to stay for Saturday night? Yeah, we're going to stay for Saturday night. Okay. And you'll probably be back next year? Probably will. Yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure to have you along all these reunions so far. I hope you can make a bunch more of them. I do, too. We're going to get old Pete in them next year. Joe Price, he'll be here Friday night for the banquet so I'll have to wait until, I didn't get him on camera yet so I'll have to wait until he gets back here. Catch you Friday. Yeah. And you and Julie both have seen being good health, is that right? Yeah, both of us. No problems right now. No problems. Okay, good. Well, I'll move on up here. This is Charlie Hunter right here. What's the name of that town you're living in, Kansas? Tonganox, Kansas. Tonganox, Kansas. Do you have your wife's name? Dorothy. Dorothy. How many years you've been married? 50 years. 50 years this year. Well, congratulations. Yeah, and this guy over here stood up with me. Is that right? Oh, Bill Marine right over there stood up for you. He sure did. And where'd you get married at? In Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi. You know, I was down there for a reunion down there last year. Oh, you were? Yeah, they had a 31st Division Society reunion was down there in 1992. Yeah. In May, I was down there for that. And it was a nice place to go. And this is your first reunion with this outfit, right? Right, right. And you didn't get, of course you live so close to Branson and stuff, you're not going to take any shows or anything? No, we're going down there because we do have reservations. Yeah, you're not going to stay for the banquet either then, huh? No. That's a shame. I thought sure you'd be for the banquet to see what we do at the banquet. Well, we, and it's other plans, you know, and of course it didn't fit in with the banquet. Yeah. Well, you plan on coming to the reunions next year? Yeah, I hope to. Okay. I'm glad to have you. Yeah, we tried to get you here last year. When are you all going to leave? We're going on down, let's see, we got a day there at Branson Friday and Saturday night. Uh-huh. And we got a reservation for a show there. Bobby McVinton, I believe. Yeah. So we'll be going to that. They've got to come in. Yeah. They've been here for a while. Okay. Bill, what? I'm going to get him to sit on that end chair over there. This is Bill Marine here. Where are you from, Bill? Herlock, Maryland. Yeah. That's right on the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah, and you've got a good looking woman sitting right back over here. That's my wife. What's her name? Thelma. Thelma, all right. How many years have you been married, Bill? 53 years in November. 53 years. In November. Boy, congratulations. Right, how are you? Boy, they're in good health yet. Yeah. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. You plan on coming back in next year, right? Lord willing. Okay, Lord willing. It's going to be up to him. Yeah, we'll be glad to have him. See, what year did you get married in then? 1940. I was married when I went in service. Oh, you got married in... Before I went in service, yeah. That's been what year? I got married in 1940. 1940. Oh, that's great. And let's see, you're about two or three years older than me, now. Well, I don't know how old you are, but I... What, 68? I'm five years older than you. Oh, you're five? I'll be 74 my next birthday. Oh, my goodness. I didn't think you was that old. I'm about a looking you are, too. Yeah, you are. But this old boy right here, I stood up with him when he got married to Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah, good old man right here. Yeah. How old are you, Charlie? 79. 79 years old? Yeah. Well, that's something else, isn't it? I think Joe Wall's 78. I believe I have to ask him again. I don't know. He might be 79 now. I don't know. It's around there. It's around there. He's one of the old timers. And I wonder what... Got all these guys who showed up this year. We hope we can get them all back next year. Yeah. I should get Bill White. Another chair. Get off my foot. Put that over here. This is Norm Steely right here from Reading, Pennsylvania, right? Right, right. Your wife's sitting back here. What's her name? Alberta. Albert. Burke Steely. How many years you been married? 47. Since 47. Well, you got 45 years? Yeah. Around there? Okay. And you've been coming to how many reunions now? This is the second one. Second one. Yeah. Second one. Yeah. I was in the other one. Yeah. You plan on coming back next year? Oh, yeah. Yeah. If at all possible, I'll be here. And, well, you going to all the shows and banquet and everything? Just about. And you're going to stay here for Saturday night, yeah? Yeah. I'll be here Sunday. Okay. And you're going to go back and drop to St. Louis? No, I'm going back to St. Louis. Yeah, I want to go to St. Louis. Go in the Arch. Bill? Hey, Charlie? Charlie? You're blocking the camera. Sorry? You're blocking the camera, Charlie. You're blocking the camera. Just wait a little bit. Oh, Norm here, he's been to two reunions now. Right. Yeah. And you enjoyed both of them? Right. Yeah. A lot of guys should come. More guys. Yeah, well, we're going to have a lot of fun. Yeah. And you're going to have a lot of fun. Yeah. And you're going to have a lot of fun. Yeah. More guys. Well, I enjoyed your letters you wrote to me, and I want to thank you for sending those pictures you sent to me. Right, okay. I'm going to send you some more this year, I hope, if I live that long. Okay, well, I'll take you. We had a good time this afternoon. We'll take care of you, sir. We're both in good health right now, aren't we? Right, right, right. Okay. I'll get over here to the next man. Okay. This is Bert Koeman here from Hammond, Wisconsin, is that right? What's your wife's name, Bert? Ella. Ella. How many years you been married, Bert? We will be married 50 years the second of December. 50 years in December. Yep. Congratulations to you both. Yeah, thanks. How many children do you have? We have six children and 20 grandchildren. Six children and 20 grandchildren. Yeah. We've probably got some great grandchildren then, haven't we? No, we don't have any of them. No great grandchildren? The oldest grandsons, they don't know nothing about girls. Is that right? Yeah. They're not old enough to know anything about girls. Oh, they're old enough. This is your first reunion we attended right here, except for the couple of years ago. No, I was in Dayton. Oh, that's right. Dayton is the second one. Yeah, second one. And I think we had three in Kansas. Yeah. You've never been to any of the South? No, no we haven't. You plan on coming back next year? Oh, that depends. Depends on where it's at, huh? Yeah, right. Depends on where it's at and what the situation is, if we're going to go someplace else too or what. So, maybe not. You're going to take in a lot of the tours, shows, stuff while you're here this time? Yeah, yeah. You're going to stay for banquet and Saturday? Yeah, yeah. We're leaving Sunday morning. Uh-huh, that's what I was planning on going back to Dayton. And you enjoyed it very much, huh? Very much. I like to meet these guys. Yeah. I've met... Joe Price will be here Friday. He was here already, checked in, but all he's staying for is the banquet. Oh, yeah. I was busy with Doom at the time. Actually, once I met Doom since he was gone, but some of these guys I haven't seen at all. Yeah. Well, I enjoyed having you coming this year. Charlie Hunter said he'd like to come again next year. Yeah, we'll think about it. Maybe we'll get more of him. Maybe I'd like to get Joe Price to come every year if I could. He's retired now and he ain't got nothing else to do. Yeah, that's true. So, I'm going to... You and your wife both have good health and no problem. Yeah, very good health. Yeah. I've had a little problem, but nothing big. Nothing big. No? Everything's all right right now. Yeah. Okay. Well, get over here to my old buddy, Bill Weiderman. Yep, that's me. I see. Your lady back there, your... Oh, Susan. Yeah, Susan back there. Susan back there. Yeah. Susan Brown. You and Susan have been coming to the reunions now how long? This is either the fourth or fifth year, like... Fourth or fifth year. Yeah. You've been to Dayton, Ohio one year. Dayton, Ohio. And this is the fourth one here, third one here, right? Let's see. Same as when I... Yeah. Yeah, Camp Hill. Pennsylvania, Waynesville, or Asheville in here. Yeah, in here. This is the third one. This is the third one here. So, you've been at least fourth. I missed one of them. In Dayton. Yeah, whatever it was. I missed it for some reason. Yeah, 19... 1999, 1989, whatever. Anyway. We got the... This is the biggest crowd of company B people we've had in the last year. Yeah. And we're gonna have one more Joe Price. Yeah. He'll be here for the banquet. I didn't... I didn't... I didn't write... You remember Joe over here? Yeah. Joe Mazzurico, he's a character. I didn't recognize him, of course. They know who it is. Oh, okay. Well, they won't be able... That's me, I know that. I remember that goop we went... I got that somewhere at home. Yeah. Well, you plan on coming back next year? Well, God be willing, I'll be here. I think it'll be closer to home next year than it is this year. Wherever it's at. It'll probably be up in the east, the eastern part of the country. Well, that might be a little bit easier for me to get to. So, but we'll see. You and Susan, good health, it seems like. No problem. I haven't heard of anything, you're talking about anything. Well, health-wise, you're in good shape. We're in pretty good shape. Yeah. If you mind, we'll see. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Well, we'll soon be in pretty good shape. We're in pretty good shape. Yeah. A few minor things, but that won't hurt. Yeah. I don't know about that. Okay. Well, I hope everybody can make it back next year. I don't know where that would be yet. I have to say, I don't recognize myself in there anywhere, but I'm probably... I certainly remember that. Yeah. That's the way we used to travel, on foot. Right on foot. Okay. Thanks, Bill. Okay. In Missouri, Springfield, Missouri. And we're getting ready to go to Otter Dimmer. We're going to a fantastic cabin. We're going to go ahead and put some outside of this. I've got to take a picture of the sides. It's been here the first time we had sun out. It's rainier all the time. It's pouring down. It's cloudy. Now we've got sun back in the city. I'm going to kill my little time. I'm going to walk around in this cabin. There's a meeting room. We have a meeting room. Sign in, tables and everything. And souvenirs if you're buying. Stuff right inside there. Look at this. This is what I'm out here right now. Taking a picture of the front of the hotel. I get close up shots of people going on the tour. A picture of the flag right here at the Shag. We're going to go ahead and put some outside of this. I'm going to take a picture of the front of the hotel. I love me! This is the next major division, thank you. Feel free to take all the pictures you want to take, if you've got your cameras with you, why, just let them go. You'll need about eight of flash for still pictures. Camp quarters work real good with the cave lights. Anytime we're on the tour you might have a question why. Far away. If I don't know the answer, I know Doyle does. If you look at this Jeep here behind us, you'll see a big silver cylinder on the front of it. That's for the Jeep's oil vent converters and gasoline over the propane. There's a reason for that. Exhaust emissions are mostly carbon dioxide and water. That's a lot easier on the cave environment. Plus it's a lot easier for us to breathe while we're down there too. So we've got one little short stop. We make before we go in the cave, we have a little demonstration we do. If everybody's ready, we'll just crank up and get going here. There's this wood out of the stove. Okay, we have just a short stop here. We call this our history lesson. Mark's Caves have played in our history. During the War of 1812 we were fighting the British. The British had our ports all blockaded. There were certain items we needed to fight the war. We had guns and lids, but that's what we didn't have, was gunpowder. Like I said, our ports were blockaded. We couldn't get it in. Well, we found out that in dry caves though, this cave by the way is far too wet, in dry caves like Mammoth Cave, Kentucky and other dry caves, there's a nitrate in that cave soil. It's called saltpeter. It's a prime ingredient used for making gunpowder. The way we would find out if a cave had this nitrate in it or not, simply go into the cave, take your foot or stick and just draw a line in the dirt in that cave. Come back a day or so later if that line had disappeared, if it had erased itself, that meant that nitrate was present in the soil. That being the case, we'd go outside the cave, build a big hopper just like this one, start holding that dirt out of that cave, fill that thing full of that cave dirt. Once we got it full of dirt, start pouring water to it because that nitrate saltpeter will dissolve in water. What would happen with that nitrate would dissolve and come out in what we call a muddy slurry there. We'd take this slurry, pour it into a pot over a roaring fire, get that water to boiling, when that water had all evaporated out of there, the bottom of that kettle would be a layer of crystal, little granules, looked a whole lot like table salt. That was a saltpeter. We'd scoop that out of there, mix it with sulfur, potash, charcoal. We made our own gunpowder and we won the war of 1812. I was there. You was there, huh? Laughter Laughter Up until today, this cave looked like it was coming into the air conditioning. Today it looked like it was coming into the fire. What we're in here is outside. Before we go any further, I'll give you just a little bit of a briefing. I'll have a little rundown on how this cave was formed, how it's being formed now even while we're in here. This is what we call a solution of a cave, which is just a big word. It means water to dissolve a limestone. That's exactly how this cavern and all the packages we'll be going through was created. Water dissolved in the limestone. It's a thousand gallon of water to dissolve every pound of limestone going out of here. So you can imagine the volume of water and the time it took just to create this cavern and the packages. Eventually this even became an underground river, but we'll talk about that a little later on. At the second stage is these formations we see in here. Take moonshine. One, two, three. Moonshine. That's just like why we call them soda straws. Now if you look over here, where Doyle and I have got our life records, you can see more of them over there. But these are longer. They're more plentiful. Because these have never been touched. These are touched by every tour group that comes through here. Okay, getting back to these things. These things are made out of that calcite. That mineral coming out of that limestone. Calcite. That's calcium or lime, whatever you want to call it. That's the stage I'm telling you about over here to the left. The reason it's called Auditorium. It's about the length of a foot by the way. During Prohibition, the man that owned the cave had a big old saloon. Speakeasy in here. So this old auditorium's had quite a history. Okay, another reason we stop here. Look up there where Doyle's got his light spotted. This is the most active formation you'll see on the tour. That's stalactite up there. See that water dripping from it? It's leaving a little bit of that mineral up there. That thing's a-growing. Well look right down here where the water's dropping down here too. See that white building up? That calcite building up on that one? That one's growing. You all come back and, oh, 30, 40,000 years, there may be a joint. Me and Doyle will probably still be driving these Jeeps. But they may not ever join. Not ever. If you notice those stalactites there in front, how they're hanging like curtains, how thin they are, those are what we call drapery formations. Those are formed when the ceiling's got a little bit of a slope to it. And they'll get where they'll just form like curtains, like say we get, they get the name drapery formations. Later on in the tour, we'll show you some drapery formations that are just starting so you can get a little better idea of how they're formed. Okay, now if you look right over here, there's probably the most perfect column you'll see in the cave. Anybody have any idea what the world like would be? No, it's not a drain pipe. You got an antenna on it, yeah? We've got radios down here we have to carry. Well, you're exactly right, sir. So well, back in 1941, across the road from the parking lot, the house was sitting there at that time, no longer there, the fellow that lived there said he wanted to drill him a well. He knew the cave was here. He got with the owner of the cave. They measured, they calculated, marked the spot on the surface up there. The man came in to drill the well, they told him, said, Driller, right here, you'll miss the cave. Well, he came down 92 feet, look what happened. He didn't miss the cave. They come right through the ceiling. Well, the men had just broke through, they knew what they'd done, so they dashed down here. Of course, there was a big hole in the ceiling. The man had known the cave said, well, it's over by the wall, it'll never ever hurt a thing. Let's just drill it all down. So it goes down another 60 feet from where we are right here. That's still working well. It's our backup water system for our visitor center there. Okay, back in 1941, when they drilled this, it was 52 years ago, they made a mistake. But they did us a favor when they made that mistake. Well, that is anyway, or... Okay, if you look back up at that pipe, those black stringy things hanging down up there, those are tree roots. They followed the water to the side of that pipe at 92 feet. The pipe itself, when we put it in the ground, was the black pipe we haven't painted. That's that calcium, that calcite, that limestone, run right down there. Mother Nature's painted, did a fair job too, didn't she? Yeah. Okay, anybody have any questions this time? Yes. Now, yeah, as soon as we forced out and came to Underground River, the water receded. You know, when the water ran out here, where these big holes are right, like that black box arm, it was brought up in there and it boyed into the water. It's like ocean coral. The only place you'll find fantastic caverns is right here. If you notice, we're in a narrow passageway between two larger rooms. You can't always feel it, but there's air constantly moving through this passageway. As this air moves through here, these formations got moisture stored in them. And as this air moves through here, the formations start oozing or seeping or sweating, whatever you want to call it. That moisture starts coming out of them and it's bringing that mineral out with it. Well, when it gets out here in the air, the air moving through here takes that carbon dioxide out of the water and just leaves this rough-looking texture here. So anytime you're in a cave, and you see this cave popcorn, or cave coral as it's called, you'll know one thing. You'll know you're in the windward part of the cave, somewhere where the air is moving constantly all the time. Okay, right back here behind the tram here, right here beside the tram, we've got a stalagmite that went from the floor all the way to the ceiling. Just a little ways from that stalactite that went from the ceiling all the way to the floor. They just went in opposite directions. This one here's got all the colors in it. It's got that pretty color we call that cave onyx. Now I'll explain these colors to you while we're here. Like this white right here, that's that calcite, that pure calcite. When you see the brown, the tan, kind of orange colors, well that's that calcite too, but it's got something mixed in with it called iron oxide, which most of us know as rust when we leave our tools out in the rain to get rained on. That's iron oxide. All right, the blues, the grays, the kind of purplish colors, that's van den Eese mixed in with this calcite. And those are the primary colors you'll see in the caves. Okay, up here in the roof, you see some white looking little things, look like marshmallows all stuck through the roof all the way back through here. Like I said, back there in the days when the man on the camera, the caverns had to speak easy back in the big room there, they were up. This neighborhood was decades away from electricity. They didn't know when they was going to be getting electricity. But he had him a little steam powered generator, drew whip smiths flavors into the ceiling, ran him some wire, and electricity decayed. That's all part of the history of fantastic caverns. That's why they had to say moonshine when they take your picture. Okay, let's go down there. We've got little animals living in that cave. We've got little fish, those are cave fish. We've got little crawfish, crayfish, whatever you want to call them. A little salamander is living down there. These things have three things in common. They're all very small because they're very big, they're all white and they're all blind because they've spent their entire lives in the Toa Nori. They go down there, some of them that's their hobby, they do it kind of for the adventure, but then they go down to check on that wildlife too. We're like a storm drain here for about 50 square miles. Look at all that water that's coming through right now. That water's what ran that foot into those animals. And that water that they knew was coming in from about 50 square miles on the surface. That's the lower visitor center in the spring down there on the river. The spring can handle about 9,000 gallon of water a minute. So you would think it would handle anything that came through here. Well, we had about a 60 grain against me. Okay. Last time when I went home, the spring couldn't handle it. The water had backed up. Oh, look, right along the river going all the way to the left. The water had backed up that far. Last year it backed up there up to this other water line right over here where he's got his life now. Three years ago in 1990, it backed up there up on the wall level. That's where he threw water back on the door and had to shut the door down for five days so the spring is trying to feed the water out here. Yeah. Okay, we're going to move on now. Okay. We're going to do some water sampling here at the spring. The drain is fantastic, Cameron. These are some of our samplers. A drain is the draining point for a cave system. What I want to do today is give you a look at the whole draining system and I'm saying we have a good case for doing it because we have had a lot of rain the past couple days. Why is the drain so large? The water goes into the cave system through things like big holes and then moves through the cave and discharges here at the spring. The flow of the spring today is about 9,000 gallons a minute, and every unit of that goes through fantastic caverns. About three quarters of the runoff water in the inside moves in the cave system. About two miles from the spring here at a vertical entrance into a fantastic system. This is one of the most open sinkholes in the whole fantastic cavern system. It's so open, in fact, it's all left. The water coming in here, it's like all my food is eaten. I can do without all the drips, I think. That's the way water gets in. And of course, not only does water get in that way, that's the way food gets in, so it can get down, and water contaminants get in too. I believe the juice gets in some way other than that though. Also, I came to this here because limestone can be dissolved by water. These limestone weights about a pound. There is this much limestone dissolved in every thousand gallons of water discharging through the spring today. You can imagine the enormous amount of water in a wall at a time required to form a cave. It makes it like a cave in the great spring system. If these caves are part of the spring system, storms can flood them and make them dangerous. This isn't your normal Ozark float trip. The fish, the great fish, and most the other cave animals are tiny, point, and blind. Although they spend their entire lives in the cave, they depend on the surface for their food. When contaminants come in from the surface, they threaten the life here. With cave systems, whatever goes down comes up. Pollution threatens all life forms. By studying the groundwater and by working to protect its quality, we can protect the beauty of the cave and preserve our quality of life. Okay, that video pretty well explained itself. Nothing I can add to that. We've come about a half mile since we entered the cave. We've come in mostly we've been driving on the old riverbed. Except for the obvious things like bridges and curbs which have been added. And of course gravel has been added to the riverbed here because it was clay. You can imagine why it would be like pulling these trailers around on clay when it got wet down here. Now we're about 130 feet from the ceiling to the surface here. As you notice we've been getting farther under the ground, but we've been driving pretty level because we've been going under a hillside. Now we're going to turn around here, and our next stop is going to be when the cave was first explored, and we're going to talk about who first discovered it. We came down. This is another canyon. This is a big built-in canyon. Oh, wow. It's whole shot. Okay. I want to apologize to the people in the same tram for a moment here. There's some names written on the wall. On the gate it says it first explored. We'll pull out here. I'll go slowly by so you can see them as we pull out. What it says is February 27, 1867, first explored. 1867, first explored. The cave was actually discovered in 1862, five years prior to this. A man by the name of John Knox owned this property at that time. Well, old John, he was quite an avid hunter. He was out here on the bluff one day with his dogs a-hunting him. One of his dogs took off after a rabbit or some sort of vermin, took out up the bluff, and disappeared. Well, he could hear the dog barking, but he couldn't see him. So he sat out up there looking for his dog. Well, after climbing around through the bushes and underbrushed the rocks, he came upon this opening. Look, sure enough, there was his dog in there. Well, he retrieved his dog and kind of put the bushes back where they was at over that opening and didn't tell nobody about it. Matter of fact, he didn't tell nobody for five years. Nobody knows for sure why, but the common belief is that in 1862 the war was going on through here. Missouri was a border state. Both armies were back and forth through here. Apparently old John was afraid that if he bragged about having this cave, well, the armies might decide they wanted this, and they might have even shot him to get it. So for whatever reason, if that's the reason or not, we don't know. But we do know that in 1867, after the war was over, he placed an ad below the paper, said, I've got a cave on my property, I've looked in it, I haven't been in it, and I'm going to go in it, and I want somebody to explore it for me. Well, on February 27th, these 12 people showed up at his door. You people up here close, you notice anything rather unique about those names? They were all women. 12 women came out of here. They belonged to a women's athletic club there in Springfield. They ran today just from 18 to 36. Like five were married and seven were single. They came out here and explored this thing. They were the first people to set foot in this cave. I mean the very first, because there's absolutely nothing to show that any early man or any Indians or anything was ever in this cave before those women were. The opening was that well concealed. And if that dog hadn't ran in there, it's not likely but entirely possible that we wouldn't be here now. It was that well hidden. Like I say, those women came in here, they spent a day, went in this cave to the other, come out. They wrote about what all they had done, what all they had seen. Said they went five mile. Well, we went as far as you can go back there, it's only a half a mile. I'm not far. The light is 1967. The light they had was bound to have been crude. And if they zigzag through here, of course there was no bridges. I'll show you later some of the obstacles they had to go over. And especially if they were wearing them long dresses and high button shoes like they wore back then. I'm sure, I'm pretty comfortable. I said before, we've been driving on the old riverbed. Well, not now. This has been all excavated and dug out. Back when they first had the first walking tourists through here, when the speakeasy was open, this is where the first man-made entrance is up here, where we'll be going out. This is where the people came in. Okay. Now you look around here and you see all the drawings turning around. Okay. And one time part of this rock was here, part of it was here, part of it was all up there. It's what we call a breakdown. Parts of the cave actually broke down. Maybe the cave receded. The ceiling could no longer support it, so it broke down. But what we've got left up there, as you notice, is that dome-tied cathedral ceiling. They say it's the strongest type of self-supporting ceiling you can have. Okay. Up there to the right, there's one of those Drake reformations up there with the light behind it. I'll go show how thin those are. You know, I told you later on I would show you a place where they're just starting to grow, so you would get an idea of how they're formed. Look right along the ceiling here. See how those formations have followed the slant of that ceiling down? Those are your drapery formations just starting. Okay. Now 100-plus years ago, them women came in. They came in from back over that way. Alrighty. This road wasn't here. They had to climb over all this. Probably went back to the down over there. Okay. Like I said, they call these the giant twins. From them calling them that, this room at Fantastic Caverns has gotten the name the Hall of the Giants because of the big formations in here like that one column up there in the middle. That's the largest column in the cave as far as the diameter of it goes. Anybody have any questions on anything we've talked about or not talked about? When they came in here and crawled over all these rocks and crevices, did they break off? Do those things break off? No, no, they won't break off just climbing over them or anything. I'm sure a lot of these formations were damaged back when the old saloon was back here and people walking in and out and everything. You said there was actually a saloon in the cave? Yes, back in the big room. Yes, it was speakeasy. They had gambling. I didn't realize it was actually in the room. It was right in the big room back there, big old night club. They operated up until about 1924. Then a couple of brother-in-laws came in here and knew how they did in-law deals are. Well, they were shocked. Well, they were shocked the others. Well, I'm sure the law knew the place was operating. They chose to turn their head. But when somebody got shocked, they had to do something so they closed it down. And when they closed it down, the fellow that owned it got a little sideways so he wound up telling it to the Ku Klux Klan who owned this cave to them up until the 30s. They had their meetings in here too. Plus, they conducted tours to the public. The big rock back there in the auditorium, the big rock behind the stage. Matter of fact, it's got the name of Rostrum Rock because that was the Rostrum River. Head man would get up there and conduct these meetings. So this cave's had quite a history. It had several names. It had a lot of names. First, it was Knox's Cave. Then a guy owned it. I forget his name. Spencer. Had his son named Percy? Yeah. Okay. Spencer's Cave. He had his son named Percy. Percy used to play in the cave all the time. Percy went off to World War I and got killed. So he named it Percy's Cave there for a long time. Then it was Temple's Cave. Then it was the Ku Klux Klan cave. I think you got the name Fantastic Caverns. Went about 1946 or something like that, Dor? Yeah. Went up farther than 40. Okay. Now who owns it now? It's a family-owned business, yes. It's still private, not state-owned? Huh? Family, not state? No, it's private. Do they own all the land above this? They've gradually bought it up. Now the way I understand it, if you own an entrance to a cave and you own the only entrance to it, if that cave goes 200 miles underground, that cave is yours. Is that what you understand, Dor? Question, it looks like some of those stalactites have been kind of broken off. Were they broken off years ago? I'm sure they were back when this place was operating back there. I'm sure there was a lot of vandalism done back then. But given enough time, the old cave will heal itself. I thought maybe some of those people that got into that woodshine when they started out had to take a hold of one of those and keep it going. Well, it might have. It might have. Well, we're going to pull all of them out of the cave now. Does it stay like that all winter? I guess below 50. We're getting ripped off. Hey, waterfalls. I'm going to see it on mine and look right over here where we're directing our lights. That's the original entrance. That's where that dog went in and where those 12 ladies went in. That's in the very big hole. But I mean, you was crawling in there, a pretty good-sized pair could fit in there or a badger or something. This was the 1860s. They could have been another entrance that cave them women didn't know about. They could have been all kinds of robbers and cutthroats in there. Yeah, bird of gutsy, that's what I would say. I don't know what they looked like, but I do know what the last explorers looked like. If you all would like to take a look at them here and see if you recognize anybody. Well, hello, this is about lead. So, no way around that. No way around that. Not a problem with the real story today. We can aim at the state glass. Yeah. I'll talk to you about that. I'm here. No, you're not. You're not. You're not. Leave the... Yeah. We have to... No, no. No. That was an answer. We're gonna watch dog here. There's a lot of people that are doing some bobbing and showing their friends. All right. No. No. I thought you were a school teacher. All right. It's a powerhouse. It's taken me ahead to work. You know, I was back at work when I came to high school. But now it's quite popular. They've got a way of doing business. It's really hard to get into. They draw from all 50 states and plus a few more countries now. But you'll enjoy the friendship now as we're eating dinner today. You'll really enjoy this. It's rated, I think, 6 in Missouri for restaurants. And everything we'll have there today is homegrown right there on the campus. And the kids serve it prepared. That's what got it started. And that's not even down here. But that's really what got it started. It's built around the lakes. Now folks, we'll stop down here and get a student guide that will go around with us to show us some of the points of interest. So if you'll just stay with us for a second, we'll get the guide and then we'll turn to campus. We're going to turn to campus first. We'll turn to the fruitcake house, the greenhouse, the chapel, the dress mill, go out to the farm, and then we'll come back and go through the museum. We'll do the museum and have plenty of time for that. Just hold on a second. I'll run in there and see if I can get us a guide. California, where else? New York, Iowa, Florida. Maryland, Maryland. I don't think we have anybody from Missouri. No one from Missouri, huh? Okay, for an hour or so. I'm from Jacksonville, Illinois. No, I'm not from Arkansas. Anyone from Arkansas on here? What we're going to do is we're going to go to the chapel and I want to give you all a brief history about what goes on at this college. It's also an opportunity for you all to ask me any questions that you might have. As you can see, there are students out here with mowers in their hands or mowing the grass or doing whatever. You'll see that all over campus. They might not be mowing, but they'll be doing other jobs. I'll explain that when we get to the chapel. This chapel was actually finished in 1956. Students helped build this chapel. The pews that you sit in, the woodwork that you'll see, the students helped build. They also helped construct the building itself. The stained glass windows, they were imported from Austria and they tell the story from Genesis to Revelation. We'll be able to see those in just a second. Now there's another tour bus over there. I don't know if they're sitting in the front or not. If they are, don't worry. We'll sit in the front too. I've got a bigger mouth than they do. So, you all are with what organization is this now? 31st Dixie Division. Okay. In World War II. W.E.D.A. W.E.D.A. Okay. W.E.D.A. W.E.D.A. 2. The big one. New Guinea, Dutch Island. New Guinea? My best friend is a family of missionaries. Papa New Guinea, right? Yeah. I would love to go visit. What little town is he? Oh, I don't have any idea. All I know is he speaks Pidgin. Yeah. As I told him, I can speak Pidgin too. You sound like a boy. Oh my. What are you taking? I'm taking music. I'm a music major. I plan to perform contemporary Christian music, but probably work in the church as a youth minister or song leader when I'm out of college. My fiance, she's a first to second grade teacher, so she can support me. I tease her about that. Sit. New Jersey. New Jersey. Y'all know about New Jersey. It's up there. New Pennsylvania. Is anyone from New Jersey here? New from Pennsylvania though, and Maryland? Yeah, y'all know about New Jersey, right? Let's go ahead and boogie off. I have some brochures for y'all. We'll go ahead and have a seat in the chapel. I love you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody want to go ahead and get a seat? Please go ahead. On the road. Thank you. In 1950, in 1956, it became a two-year junior college. In 1965, it became a four-year liberal arts college. While the field was our biggest school in the country, we had about 8,000 students and about 600 students a day. It's chill in here, isn't it? Yeah. Okay, next place we go. All right. New Jersey. New Jersey. That's what I'm gonna say. Oh, yeah. It's awful. It's in here. It seems like a son to a daughter's or a father to a mother. New Louisiana. Education. It's a little lower. Thank you. I'm here. These are pens. Pins. I'm sorry. Pins, pens. I don't... I'm gonna say my words very well. Y'all just go ahead and take one. I've been told that many a times. Now, that guy back there, that's the guy that was... His family was a missionary in Papua New Guinea. The same opportunity that their mom and dad had. They can go to college here, too. It's not affiliated with any denomination. We do have a covenant, though, with the Presbyterian Church. They still support the college in a lot of ways. Did you have a question? This is much like nursing. We were in nursing for years. And they're a great average, having to be very high. And that's the elite. Also in Cabrilla and Kentucky and Blackburn and Illinois is some other colleges like this college. Ours, I think, is the cheapest room and board. I think we have the cheapest. How many acres in college? Very college suits. In Georgia? Georgia. How many acres in college? About a thousand. About a thousand acres. What do we raise? We raise cattle and pigs. We also have a dairy farm. And we'll be going by that. But our beef farm is off campus, thank the Lord. And so is the pig farm. I'm a city slicker, so... I'm a die-hard city slicker. As you all can tell, I love to go out on a farm and spend the weekend, but I like it when I can go home. I like to... My farming consists of throwing the fish and pull out into a pond and fishing for the bass or the catfish. That's about it. How is the fishing in Lake Taney? Here, Lake Taney combo for trout is wonderful. How about that? The big lake. I guess it's supposed to be good. I've never even fished down here, actually. It's always cost so much for an out-of-state license. So I just have never... And if I'm only going to fish once, I just figure out... Is this Lake Taney combo? Yes. Right. And then Bull Shoals, and then it goes into... Bull Shoals? Yes. Lake Taney combo goes into Bull Shoals. And then White River comes out of Bull Shoals. How many rivers do you know of? One. One piece. One piece. Bull Shoals. We'll see you in the fruitcake. We had a couple years in the office. Off to a ride when you walk by here. Do y'all still have that on? No. Just had one there. Oh, and you're making... You can set that over there. Thank you. Enjoy your meal. These two lovely ladies are... We are going to get that in the food order. All... All Jarls. All right, folks. If you don't want to purchase fruitcake jellies after lunch, in the summer, pumps it back up to the fountain. The fountain is used as a filtering assist object. As we make this corner here, remember I was telling you a little bit, I said that you can get an aviation science major here on campus? Well, you can actually get your pilot's license go all the way up to your commercial. You can see the airport right up there. And that's where students can get that. They can get their aviation's in the... Of this Cupid doll collection. And many, many, many, many other collections here on this campus. We can just pull right up to Greenland. They raise their own plans up for the... campus. Lars is the... Lark's!) Oh! Caught a little mathematician. That's you clinging to that there. What are you calling that? You didn't push it? You didn't push the ticket? You did not push the full stop and fighter in line. We'll be showing shortly the location. Concerning the museum, we'll get started back here. We'll be showing shortly the location. We'll be showing shortly the location. We'll be showing shortly the location. We'll be showing shortly the location. 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