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Jim White
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As we drove down the winding highway descending from the Capitan Reef, Mary Ann read to me from a book that we had purchased in the Carlsbad Caverns Visitor Center about the discoverer of the Caverns,
James Larkin White. The “bat cave” was well-known before the turn of the century as a mining site for bat droppings called guano, a rich source of fertilizer that was hauled to the surface in large iron guano buckets on cable elevators. Though the shallow parts of the cave provided an abundant supply of guano, no one had dared to venture into the depths of the dark caverns.
Jim White, who worked as a cowboy around Carlsbad in his early days, began to explore the cave in 1898 with a kerosene lantern and crude improvised climbing equipment. Driven by curiosity and wonder, he eventually traversed all the way to the Big Room by himself. This was an incredible feat of either bravery or insanity to do this with the knowledge that if he lost his lantern he would be permanently stranded in total darkness without any means of escape or rescue.
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Guano bucket elevator, 1924
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He was later accompanied by a brave 15 year old Mexican boy known only as “The Kid”, but it would be another 20 years before Jim White got anyone to believe his tales of the amazing size, depth and beauty of the caverns. Everyone in the town simply dismissed him as a lunatic or a liar, and nobody would believe such a story from a young Mexican kid. He finally vindicated himself by persuading photographer Ray V. Davis to accompany him into the caverns. The pictures convinced the skeptics, and as the word spread abroad, White was approached by increasing numbers of people wanting him to guide them into the caverns. To make the caverns more accessible, he singlehandedly moved boulders that obstructed passageways, made a handrail out of wire tied to old Ford axles that he wedged into the crevices of the rocks, and rigged a pulley for a large guano bucket, which he used to lower people down the deepest vertical drop. Over the next few years, White lowered hundreds of people into the caverns in the rickety guano bucket without any serious mishap. After being surveyed by the General Land Office in 1923, Carlsbad Caverns was established as a National Monument, and Jim White was hired as its principal guide and Chief Ranger. In 1924, government geologist Willis T. Lee toured the caverns with White and published the story in National Geographic Magazine. By the time the Caverns reached National Park status in 1930, White had retired, saying that the job had become too complicated for him with his limited education. White later began selling his book, “The Discovery and History of Carlsbad Caverns”, and he spent many days in nearby White City sharing his stories with Park visitors.
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Jim White with Amelia Earhart
NPS photo |
We had assumed that White City was named after Jim White, but we later discovered that the place was homesteaded in 1928 by Charlie White—no relation to Jim. By 1928, the caverns had become a popular tourist attraction, so Charlie must have envisioned his homestead as prime real estate where he could capitalize on tourist trade. White City seemed like a faded little town when we arrived that morning in the off-season month of November. At one and only gas station, a late-arriving attendant made us wait to get gas for about 15 minutes or so while she closed out the pay-at-the–pump credit card receipts from the previous day. Next door, the general store displayed a prominent sign that was made to resemble a Park Service sign encouraging visitors to “register for your park visit here”. I guess Charlie White and his successors had to make a living too, but some of it seemed a little reminiscent of P.T. Barnum. We didn’t linger in White City. Since it was so late in the season, there was no point in waiting around for sunset to watch the myriads of bats emerge from the natural entrance to the caverns. The Mexican bats had already migrated home for the winter, and it seemed that most humans had migrated home as well.
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