The Cave at the Cove

Looking back through time my sense of adventure has always influenced my life. As a child, I explored and tested the limits of my physical prowess. My parents can confirm I broke more bones than Evil Kenevil. We were both born on October 17^th if that is ironic or not,” Only the Shadow knows.” Living in the Missouri Country swimming in the creek, fishing for minnows and crawdaddies, and pulling leeches off when you got out was a part of my life on the farm. My adventure continued to North Carolina and then back to the Midwest and Kansas.

In the summer of 87' my brother Ken and our friend, Jon were spending a weekend down in Jon’s cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks on the Laurie side. We drove down from Kansas City Friday night looking for a relaxing fun swimming weekend. Little did we know what adventure lay ahead of us.

   That Saturday Morning Jon had mentioned a cave he saw once when he was out with his brother the last time they were there but they did not go in it. Rumor has it that this tunnel goes all the way to the other side of the mountain and was used in the Civil War as a hideout for the Confederates. Some kids exploring in the 1920s came out with gold coins, some myths say that this cave might be an Indian Sacred site as well. Elephant Rocks roam all over the landscape around the top of the mountain. With that information we immediately decided to go canoeing and explore the cave, so we grabbed some oil-burning lanterns that were also the source of light for the cabin, our necessary supplies, and put on our lifejackets to begin our adventure. An eerie early morning fog rolled across the still water of the lake as we quietly paddled along the coastline.

    The Cove was about a fifteen-minute paddle away from the cabin. We actually passed the cove but Jon noticed the landmarks

and we turned around only losing five minutes. The Cove from the lake had a narrow entrance of about ten feet wide formed by the water of a spring.

Well hidden from the lake view from the overgrowth of summer vegetation we glided into the cove, as it appeared to be a natural spring pool outside of a cave. We continued into the mouth of the cave and landed the canoe on the dirt and rocky shore.

The entrance was about ten feet tall and about six feet wide and water trickled out into the lake from the dark open space in front of us. The room or cavern we were in looked like it was a home for some critters that ate meat by the bones we saw lying on the floor. We looked at the walls and saw nothing of human hieroglyphics, so we walked to the back of the room to a tunnel where we could

walkthrough. We lit up our candles and started walking the gentle incline, as water slowly streamed by us we went deeper into the unknown.

    At about fifty feet in we found our path blocked. A cave-in happened some time ago, but by pushing some rocks out of the

way we were able to climb over the top boulders that had blocked the path. Being young and a contortionist I went head first up and over twisting my body to place my feet down into water that came up to my knees. The water was cold but clear as I was able to look around when I pulled my lantern out from the hole I crawled out of. After Ken and Jon made their way over the rocks we turned our attention to the tunnel that continued deeper into the darkness

beginning to narrow to shoulder-width and a height of about five feet.

    Our oil lamps are leaving soot marks on the ceiling of the cave tunnel as we crouch sideways curving our way deeper into

the mountain with the water level slowly going down our legs so we are only ankle-deep now in water. At this point, we lost track of the time and distance traveled and so we decided to place coins on our journey from our time in 1987.

   We must have been a couple hundred yards under the mountain still having enough oil in our lamps to continue, we did so. Our tunnel seems to be keeping its same form as we move further in. You can tell what was natural and what man did to make the tunnel accessible. The water is still running down the walls making the stream at our feet as we walk on still on solid rock. We creep around a corner with our lantern lighting showing what appears in our eyes to be a larger tunnel opening about twenty feet up an incline that splits off in another direction.

   Ken is in the lead followed by Jon and myself as we cautiously move towards the opening. When we reach the discovery we all put our lanterns into the room lighting up what appears to be a large man-made cavern with debris and bones scattered about the room going back about ten feet and about six feet in height. In the middle of the room, there is a fire pit. As we enter we pull out our hand metal detectors and start poking around the ground. Working side by side we navigate our way a few feet in and Ken’s detector goes off. He scrapes a little soil from where his wand hit and he pulls out what appears to be a pistol musket ball.

Excitement is in our bodies as we get back to scanning the dirt floor and we get another hit. This time Jon’s went off. With our lanterns on the ground in front of us we moved the soil from where Jon detected. With amazement a shiny piece of metal was exposed, scraping more it was larger and deeper than we thought. As they pulled the object out of the dirt I grabbed a bottle water and my lantern. Pouring the water on the object it became more yellowish in color and round shape about three inches in diameter. We cannot make out the inscription so we bag this find as well and continue. Some of the debris was clothing material and paper that was so frail it fell apart at our touch.

The bones did not appear to be human more like fowl or small rodents. We crawl closer to the fire pit when we put our detectors inside the rock ring all of our detectors go off. We scrape our hands around the soil to discover a chest buried in the dirt. Our hearts racing we unburied the treasure chest to find it locked and very secure. The oak chest was about two-foot square with brass corners, two brass straps were made into the box that were fastened by skeleton key locks. The crate was about fifty pounds in weight as we moved it out of the hole it was in. As we looked over the chest we decided we could not open it there so we had to take it back with us to the cabin and open it there. We set the chest by the tunnel and finished our mission at the task. Around the rock ring on the outside of the pit, we discovered a ceramic pipe, two buttons, several small caliber bullets, the rusted remains of a spoon, and three coins. Our search to the back wall found us just on our knees.

We clean ourselves off a bit and decide to head back with our oil getting low in the lanterns. We work our way back through the narrow tunnel carrying the extra weight of the chest and our trinkets. We reach the rocks blocking our path, the cave-in, I again go through first, and then Jon comes through. I climb back into the hole as Ken holds up the chest to hand off to me to pull through the opening. The chest is too big to fit in the space, so I drop the chest back down to Ken, and I climb back onto his side. We attempt to break the locks with the rocks but they are slate and fall apart on striking. My oil light goes out and Ken’s starts to flicker as we decide to leave the chest and come back for it later. We crawl through the small space again and Jon is there with his lantern flickering out. We can walk our way to the natural light provided to us by Mother Nature back to our canoe. We walk out of the cave and examine the treasures that we were able to bring out. The pipe is missing its mouth piece which could have been deeper in the soil is painted brown with green leaves around the bowl with the stem going down the stem of the pipe. The buttons appear to be off of a uniform or a coat of some sort. The bullets or balls of different sizes appear to be just molded because the melted lead still hanging from the balls not smoothed out yet.

It is mid-afternoon as we get our timing back and senses. So we swim for a bit in the clear warm water of the spring and clean the old dirt off of our bodies. We finish our swim and get back in the canoe to make a plan to rescue our chest. We return to the cabin and find a few hammers and screwdrivers that we can use as chisels and break the rocks apart. If we cannot bring the chest we can use the tools to break the locks. We intended to return to the cave the next morning but as we rose out of bed Jon became frantically sick and we had to take him back home to Overland Park.

Time moved on and so did Jon passing away the next year before we were able to retrieve the chest. My brother Ken passed away a few years later and I inherited the disc. He never did any research on this item and with my curiosity, I found the round three-inch disc my brother found was a button for the Knights of the Golden Circle. Being young and dumb I did not pay attention to where the cabin was in the Ozarks and was never able to retrieve what could be millions in gold stolen in the Civil War. Investigations have determined that many famous characters from the Civil War era, including John Wilkes Booth and Jesse James, belonged to and acted under the influence of the Knights. Jesse James and the Youngers were known to frequent the area of course before there was a lake. Researchers argue that the Knights buried millions of dollars in stolen U.S. Army payrolls in locations across the South, where they hid money or gold (now worth billions). These are conspiracy stories associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle, but none of them can be reliably documented. The proof is lost in The Cave at the Cove.