"The lost cave in the Garden of the Gods has been found!"With all the romance that a cave can have, John A. McDougal, superintendent of the Palmer park CCC camp, and enrollees at work in the Garden of the Gods have discovered, and opened, an ancient cavern where many of the earliest of the pioneers carved their names, with dates, upon the walls.
"It is the largest of the gateway rocks, underneath the Kissing Camels, a curious rock formation. The cave is a long corridor that makes this massive rock partly hollow. It is hundreds of feet from end to end of it and it is more than 10 feet wide in places and has a ceiling 100 feet high.
"The city park board has ordered the entrance closed and barricaded, and no one is allowed to enter it. This is because a piece or rock fell from the top and just missed one of the explorers. The public will not be admitted until it shall have been determined that the cave is safe.
"The discovery was as storylike as the cave itself. A short time ago an old man called at the Hidden Inn in the Garden of the Gods, saying that he had brought his great-grandchildren to show them the cave underneath the Kissing Camels, which he remembered as a boy.
""Why there is no cave underneath the Kissing Camels," he was told.
"Yes, there is," he persisted. "There is a large one in that west gateway rock. Many a time have I seen it."
"The aged visitor and his great-grandchildren went away disappointd. But MacDougal and the CCC men started to investigate. They found a small hole. Not a dog could have made his way into it. But it looked promising and they started to dig. It opened up wider and wider, and soon sure enough, they found themslves within a large cave.
"The walls were carved with names and initials, which extended down to the very floor, leading them to believe that much dirt had fallen on the bottom of the cave. This they started to remove, ever finding more rock carvings on the walls as they dug deeper. The park board was notified and the work of removing dirt went on until 75 truckloads had been taken out. This dirt must have accumulated very gradually, for when all of it had been removed names and initials were found carved so high on the walls that it would require a long ladder to get up to them.
"It is impossible to identify the names with the dates in many instances, so many are the carvings and so irregularly are they placed upon the walls of this historic cave. In one place there is an '1858.' This was before Colorado City, now the west side of Colorado Springs was founded. The Pikes Peak region was a wilderness then. Nearby it is the name 'C.C. Graf,' altho there is no telling whether it is connected with this date. Part of the carvings in that spot are illegible. There is the name 'Mrs. Lou Frost, 1870.' It is believed to have been carved by Mrs. Louise I. Frost, 214 North Chestnut street, now 90 years of age and the oldest member of the El Paso County Pioneer society. Mrs. Frost was always known as Mrs. Lou Frost in early days.
"The name 'W. Liert' appears with the date '70' after it. There is the inscription 'D. Mills, 1866.' Another is 'W. Nelson, 1866.' Another '1873' with 'B.R.' near it. The names 'A. Dunlop, 'A.S. Voorhees' and D.P. Drake' appear plainly on the walls of the cave.
"The date '1879' appears in one place, and not far from it the name 'C.L. Moss.' but the date probably belonged to another carving. There is an '1886,' with name unreadable. There is a 'Haswell, 1871.' Or so the date appears to be. Another inscription is 'M.A.V., 1865' There is a G.A. Copley plainly cut in the soft sandstone, but with no date. Othr inscriptions are 'B.F. Wadsworth,' 'R.O.F.,' 'Liselle,' and 'E.A.J.'
"Truly this makes the western gateway rock of the Garden of the Gods the autograph album of the pioneers. The outside of the rock at the place of entrance is thickly carved with names and initials, with dates. The story of this has been told before. It is the cover of the book. The walls inside the cave are the papers."