Picture courtesy of Jim Kuntz.

Picture courtesy of Jim Kuntz.

Missouri, widely known as "The Cave State", derives this designation from both fact and fiction. In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark encountered their first cave in what would become Missouri shortly after departing from Saint Charles. Mark Twain later enhanced the state's cave legendary with the fictional adventures of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher and Huckleberry Finn in McDougal's Cave (now Mark Twain Cave) near Hannibal. The state, however, probably earned its nickname for the sheer number of caves within its boundaries. With the addition of more than 100 new caverns each year to Missouri's geologic register, the state now claims over 5,500 recorded caves. Only Kentucky can boast more.

Nestled in the hills above the Loutre River in Montgomery County, lies one of the state's most significant caves, in Graham Cave State Park. The main feature of the park was formed at the point of contact between Jefferson City dolomite and St. Peter sandstone. Gradual water flowing through the sandstone, along with a combined action of wind and freezing, worked to make a relatively large cave. The cave originally extended about 100 feet into the hill, but an accumulation of debris over the years filled the lower part of the cave with about seven feet of deposits. An arch like entrance, 120 feet wide and 16 feet high, provided human and animals with easy access to shelter.

Graham Cave is named after the first settler who owned the land. In 1816 Robert Graham bought some bottom land along the Loutre River from Daniel Boone's son, Daniel Morgan Boone, and in 1847 purchased the property that contained the cave. It remained in the Graham family until its transfer to the state of Missouri in 1964.

Graham's son, D.F. Graham, used the cave to shelter his hogs, but also became interested in archaeology and artifacts that he found in the cave. After his death, his son, Benjamin offered his father's collection of artifacts to the University of Missouri, which spawned archaeological interest in professors Jesse Wrench and J. Brewton Berry. Wrench and Berry visited the cave to assess its archaeological potential in 1930.

Archaeological activity remained dormant after their visit until 1948. Benjamin's daughter, Frances, married Ward Darnell, who, in 1948, attempted to expand the opening using a bulldozer. As he worked to clear extra space for hay and farm machinery, the farmer unearthed arrowheads, spear points, pottery chips, and what appeared to be human bones. Fortuitously, Mr. Darnell halted work and contacted Carl Chapman, a prominent archaeologist at the University of Missouri.

Artifacts revealed that these early native Americans depended mainly on hunting and fishing for food using spears as weapons. They occupied the cave seasonally and apparently believed in the supernatural. A ring of rocks that encircle a large stone, believed to be a council ring, was found in the cave and suggests that they held ceremonies. Pieces of pottery found in the cave indicate it was also occupied by a more recent culture of Native Americans. Graham Cave provided ready-made housing for man for about 10,000 years. The cave slowly filled with deposits of dust from the wind, sand from the dwelling, and debris left by man living there. This remarkable record of the lives of man is particularly good from about 10,000 to 4,000 years ago.

As a result of these important archaeological findings, Graham Cave was the first archaeological site in the United States to be designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961. Frances Graham Darnell donated the cave and land to the state in 1964 to create a state park. After acquisition of the cave by the state park system, excavations were done in 1966 to clean up the area and provide additional research. Since then, excavations have not been conducted in order to preserve the remaining deposits. Today, an accessible trail leads to the entrance of the cave, where interpretive signs point out some of these interesting discoveries.

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