New signs focus on cave education

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Perry County is home to more than 700 known caves, as well as four of the five longest documented caves in the state of Missouri.

Newly installed “karst landscape” signs put an extra emphasis on the caving background in this area, in the hopes of informing more people about the unique topography.

Scott House, the Ozark Operations manager for the Cave Research Center, wrote the new signs and discussed them Tuesday afternoon.

“We came up with the idea of interpretative signs that would go up in town and outside of town as well,” House said.

Four signs have been installed now — one near the Perry Park Center entrance, another at the natural area at City Park, one detailing life in caves near the concession stand at the Bank of Missouri Soccer Complex and another focusing on cave mapping at the T.G. 5K Fitness Trail near the entrance to Crevice Cave.

The sign near the Park Center focuses on cave discovery.

“The idea behind this particular sign is about the discoverers of caves beneath Perryville and Perry County. What people don’t realize in the area is that this really is a national level occurrence. In other words, we you look at caves and karst across the United States – and karst is an area that has caves, sink holes, springs, natural bridges — there are a lot of famous caves out there, like Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and Wind Cave in South Dakota. But the caves beneath Perry County are just as interesting and there’s such a high concentration of them that it makes it really a national treasure. It’s just that most people don’t get to see what’s underneath the streets of Perryville and what’s underneath the pastures of Perry County. There’s tremendous things that are out there. We’re creating these signs to help create more awareness.

“Some of this is related to the grotto sculpin which is the little fish that lives in the caves in Perry County. It’s considered to be threatened because it only lives in the caves in Perry County. Its life depends on organic input plus good water to live in. Above and beyond that, these caves have tremendous value and they serve as stormwater systems for the city of Perryville. They also do the same thing out on farms as well.”

“These caves are tremendously wonderful,” House said. “It’s a great resource. Missouri is many times called the cave state. Tennessee has more caves than Missouri but within Missouri, Perry County is the karst capital. It has more caves than virtually any other county in the state.”

The miles of caves that are here – for example — the longest cave in the state, Crevice Cave, has been mapped to more than 30 miles. If standing at the Park Center, that would extend all the way to the riverfront in Cape Girardeau, House pointed out.

Three of the other caves in Perry County are among the top five longest in the state.

“This coalition of groups, including private foundations, the city of Perryville, department of convervation and then a variety of cave groups such as the Cave Research Foundation, Missouri’s Speological Survey, local caving clubs and such have put support forward for these signs,” House said.

Monetary donations, information, logistics, moral support all played a role in the completion of the new signs, House said.

“We’re very proud that these have been started and we intend to continue doing this so more people are aware of the resources here in Perry County,” House said.

In addition to the Cave Research Foundation, the city of Perryville and LAD Foundation, as well as other groups and organization have assisted in the process.

The costs were the signs and material, House said. The writing and design were all donated.

“Everybody chipped in and it’s a great, new thing for Perryville,” he said.

House answered a variety of questions earlier this week, such as why this was a good area to settle in despite the caves.

Caves in the Perryville area served as natural cellars and springs with water, and even beer caves which were important for storage

House mentioned that Union soldiers in the Civil War era explored a cave near Apple Creek and signed their names.

“People have been exploring these caves for a long time,” House said. “There used to be several right underneath the downtown area of Perryville. There still are entrances into some of those but the downtown area has been built up physically for so long that what used to be on the surface is now about 20 feet below the surface just from 150 years, 180 years of building everything. There is a place where you can open a man hole and see the remains of where somebody bricked up a spring in Perryville.”

House described the challenging process of mapping caves.

“It’s an ongoing process and it’s very difficult,” House said. Tape measures or other measuring devices are used.

“In the old days, it was simpler but it was not as accurate,” he said. “Today, we have some electronic devices that allow us to do it quicker and easier. It still requires a human to go through those passes. Even now, within the last year, more than a mile of new, new to human, passage has been mapped just outside of the city of Perryville. These are on trips that might take you eight hours, they might take you 12-14 hours underground, most of the time not in walking high passage, most of the time on hands and knees, bellycrawling, most of the time in water. Specialized equipment and tough individuals are required for that type of work. You could be in the water in a wet suit, in 55 degree water, you might be in that water for six, to seven or eight hours. That’s the sort of thing that you would get hypothermia from if not protected by a wet suit or some other equipment.

For more on this story, see the Dec. 9 print edition of the Republic-Monitor.