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Jul 20, 2008 10:51 pm US/Central
Finding Minnesota: Stillwater Caves
STILLWATER, Minn. (WCCO) ―
Most Minnesotans have wandered the quaint streets of Stillwater. It offers antique shops, romantic restaurants and hilltop vistas of summertime on the St. Croix. It's what's below this charming community that can capture attention.
"Do you think most people know the caves are here or is it just Stillwater locals?" asked WCCO-TV's Jeanette Trompeter.
"Oh, well even locals don't know about it," answered Tyler Morris, a tour guide and historian at the caves.
Connected to the Luna Rosa Restaurant in Stillwater is a maze of caves; 10,000 square feet of them.
"They started digging them out in the late 1800s, right about 1872 or so," said Morris. He remembers visiting the caves as a kid. Now he guides tours through them and shares the stories of how they came to be.
Locals say it took eight to 10 years to dig these caves in Stillwater sandstone. The motivation was the abundant natural springs that run through here.
"We've had tests done before and we're told it's more than 95 percent pure," Morris said as he tosses a stone into a pool of the spring water.
Joseph Wolf found the perfect environment for making beer in the caves. At one point some 25,000 barrels of beer were coming out of the caves a year. Then prohibition hit.
"Wolf himself in town was known as Honest Joe Wolf. He was the guy that would never, ever break the law. So when prohibition started, there was no bootlegging done here," said Morris.
The caves sat empty for years until a guy named Tom Curtis bought them, and decided he had perfect environment for nurturing wild imaginations. In 1956, he flooded the place and started offering boat tours and tall tales down here.
"There's a lot of stories. Kids in town, of course, were terrified of it. It was very dark, it was very dimly lit, it was freezing in here and you really couldn't see a whole lot that was going on. It was a very mysterious space," chuckled Morris. "He was known in town as Caveman Curtis."
For a short time in the 1950s, he offered up the space for a fall-out shelter, even running drills with the local high school.
"According to him, he managed to get 500 kids from their desks down to the caves with doors sealed in less than 10 minutes," said Morris.
Now the caves house little more than their history, and that crystal clear spring water that prompted their existence.
The caves are connected to Luna Rossa Restaurant and if you get the right table, you get a birds-eye view of this beautiful part of Stillwater history.
And until Labor Day, you can escape the summer heat with a tour through the cool climate the caves provide. And the next time you pay a visit to Stillwater, you'll know there's a little something more in "them thar' hills," than the picture postcards reveal.
And next weekend would be a perfect time to pay a visit to the caves. Stillwater will host its annual Lumberjack Days, so there will be a bunch of other activities for you to check out as well.
For more info on the celebration or cave tours click on the links below.
Stillwater Lumberjack Days
Joseph Wolf Brewery Cave Tours
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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