John Shearer: Historic Items Photographed During Lookout Mountain Cave Rescue

While helping rescue two young cave explorers last week, Brad Tipton was also able to save some historical aspects of the Lookout Mountain Cave through photographs.

The deputy chief of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Rescue Service said that he found the long-discussed autograph of Andrew Jackson – or at least someone using the same name as the nation’s seventh president – and some mysterious-looking Masonic stone ballot boxes.

While they were successfully rescuing Gabriel Vaughn, 21, and Robby Dobos, 23 – who had left Feb. 28 to go caving and were rescued early March 2 after their close contacts became worried -- Mr. Tipton said he had found the items using a cave map put together in the 1950s.

The photographs might become even more valuable because he said he saw Norfolk Southern sealing off the entrance even more tightly after the successful rescue than it was beforehand.

“For all intents and purposes, we might have been the last people to see those,” he said.

Mr. Tipton thinks the cavers walked down the railroad bed through the tunnel, which intersects with the outer edge of the cave, and were able to access the cave that way.

The railroad tunnel was constructed beginning in 1905. Mr. Tipton said.

The cave is long known in local annals as the cave connected indirectly to Ruby Falls. While drilling an elevator shaft down toward that cave in the late 1920s, a team led by local spelunker Leo Lambert discovered a more-elevated cave with a waterfall, which he named Ruby Falls in honor of his wife.

Mr. Tipton said the bottom of the elevator as well as a spiral staircase from when Ruby Falls formerly took tours down there or allowed access are also visible.

Regarding the Andrew Jackson signature, Mr. Tipton said it was done as an etching with a piece of rock or a tool instead of with a carbide lamp usually used during that era, so he is not sure if it is authentic. It is located about a quarter of a mile into the cave, he said.

It does have the accompanying date of 1837, which was when Mr. Jackson of Tennessee left the White House after his eight-year term. But some historians are not sure if he was in the area at the time. It is also not known if other Andrew Jacksons lived in the area or were visiting then, either, or if someone signed that name as a prank.

Mr. Tipton said there are also other caves around that have old signatures on cave walls, such as one in North Alabama. “You can start to ID what is real and what is not,” he said.

The ballot boxes were built using available stones, and the story regarding who put them there or what they were used for is apparently not known. One historical story said everyone from Masons to the Ku Klux Klan were believed to have used the cave decades ago for various purposes.

Cave exploring, as the two men were doing, has become a popular hobby locally with countless caves in the Chattanooga and Tri-State area. It has become literally and figuratively an underground activity, with many of the explorers posting videos online on YouTube and other places, Mr. Tipton said.

One issue with cave exploring, Mr. Tipton added, deals with ownership or access rights to a cave, since they are below ground. Often those answers are not always clear, he said.

In connection with that, some have also called for trespassing charges or rescue restitution payments when cave rescue operations, like the one last week, take place.

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To read a detailed story about the history of the Lookout Mountain Cave written in 2020 by Jerry Summers, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2020/8/9/412000/Jerry-Summers-Lookout-Mountain-s-Other.aspx

To see a 2013 story regarding the legend of whether that is Andrew Jackson’s actual signature in the cave, see here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/8/1/256153/Did-President-Andrew-Jackson-Ever-Visit.aspx

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net