By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
PEMBERVILLE—According to Pemberville lore, animals and human life have been lost in a cave that is said to be hidden underground east of the downtown business section.
The stories date back to the early 1900s when the local Pemberville Leader newspaper reported the existence of the cave and all its grandeur. Described as “lofty halls, jeweled with stalactites that sparkle and scintillate in the deep subterraneous recesses,” (Or “a mammoth cave more wonderful than the famous grotto of Kentucky,” there continues to be mystery surrounding the cave.
Dennis Walston, who has been intrigued with the cave stories for more than 20 years, is on a mission to unite other spelunkers, cavers and curious folk to uncover the truth of the cave that is said to be in a wooded area near Kahler Road on village-owned property.
“There’s a lot of history about the caves, so we are here to continue the legacy of Dale Bruning who started the search 20 years ago,” Walston said to a standing-room-only crowd recently at the Pemberville Public Library.
In the early 2000s, Bruning, a retired history teacher who passed away in 2011, was doing research in the library about some of Pemberville’s historic homes when by a fluke, he unearthed the newspaper’s cave reports. Curious about the stories’ validity, he enlisted several people, including Walston, to search for the lost cave. There were several attempts to dig debris from what was thought to be the cave opening, but with no definitive finds.
Walston’s renewed interest is to finish Bruning’s original mission to set the story straight. Is there “a mammoth cave more wonderful than the famous grotto of Kentucky,” as the Aug. 17, 1901, newspaper account states? Or were the newspaper stories a work of fiction?
Stories relayed about the cave include that William Henry Harrison’s troops may have discovered the cave when they encamped in the area while awaiting supplies during the War of 1812.
Also from a 1901 newspaper—“as told to the Leader by an old lady on a sacred promise there be no mention of her name”—was a story about “an unfortunate French Canadian” who visited the area with a friend to explore the cave’s “beautiful stalactites and stalagmites which glitter and sparkle like gold and silver bullion.” They lost their way when their oil lights burned out and couldn’t find their way back. The French Canadian was too weak to continue but urged his friend to go without him. The friend eventually found his way out. After two unsuccessful searches, a third attempt found the French Canadian has perished where he had been left.
Another story surfaced from 1889 when “a cow of an exploratory turn of mind ventured too far into its cavernous depths and succumbed to an awful fate.” Allegedly, the cave’s opening was filled with huge rocks to prevent other livestock from exploring. An aperture large enough for a man to crawl in remained.
According to a July 1907 Pemberville Leader story, the original cave stories may have been a push to promote Pemberville and the cave might have been a capitalistic ploy. “Maybe it was like telling stories in a barbershop, where one story leads to another,” the article stated.
Aaron Walston, Dennis’s son who is a fourth-grade math and science teacher, has hopped on the caver bandwagon. “I looked at the topography of our area, and we do have a lot of limestone that will dissolve in water,” he said, which is conducive to cave formation.
When Dennis Walston mapped out a “pretty straight line” connecting locations of the Pemberville cave, the Vanek cave on Swan Road, and a sinkhole, “Things started to get a little more interesting.”
“That’s the basic information we have. We’d love to know more about what’s happening here,” he said asking the locals to share information they might have. “We need to know what you know.”
Stories shared during the meeting talked of water that would flood an area and then miraculously disappear, draining like a kitchen sink. Another farmer had told Walston about a Fish Road farm being flooded when he went out to the barn, but when he came back, the water was gone.
The high water table is one of the reasons exploration has been difficult. “Unless you have scuba gear, you’re not going in in the spring.”
Bob Bruning, Dale’s brother, said, “I was out there today and took a photo. You can see little indentation there.” It might be tile, but there is grass over the area. “That goes along with what you are talking about,” he said.
He also reported another “fact or fiction” long ago tale of an animal that had entered the cave and traversed across an underground river and came out near the area where organic crops are now grown.
Adding to the mystery, another attendee mentioned coon hunts that were held in the woods in the 1960s. he was told, “You almost had to stay on top of your dogs, because those hunters knew of dogs that got lost in the cave in that woods.”
Emily (Vanek) Snyder lives on her family’s property. Photos on display at the meeting, showed overhangs of the Vanek caves, which were bulldozed in the 1940s.
It was suggested that while the caves may have been in existence at the turn of the 20th century, that oil drilling and installation of electrical lines may have disrupted the underground caverns.
“There is so much information that I never knew, but we have promising leads. It’s just a question of being able to check them out,” Walston said. “If there is a cave system, the caves breathe.” The caves may be lying dormant beneath the surface, or they may be fabled lore from the Leader.
“We can go from here to see how much further we want to do with this,” Walston said. He will have help as more than a handful of people signed up to be part of the continued search for the elusive cave.
