Gray’s
Cave
I have certainly had an interesting, almost eclectic job during my tenure of eighteen years at Jefferson Proving Ground,
Madison, Indiana. This ammunition testing center was created by the old War Department during the troubling period one year
before Pearl Harbor. Despite incursions by the Army with the most modern and sophisticated weapon systems of the twentieth
century there are some areas of JPG that have remained obscure.
Traces of old county roads crisscross the proving ground in
a faint tapestry of abandoned road beds lined with vegetation and small brush like trees. Mr. Harvey B. Gray and his daughter
Mary Lou Halcomb recently sent a map into headquarters showing the location of Wood School (closed in 1923), Harvey's
old home place (purchased by the government in 1940), intersecting roads, and the site of a cave located no more than 200
feet from his house. The cave furnished an abundance of water.
At the mouth of the cave a bowl shaped depression in the rock
would capture five or six buckets of water. Water ran in this cave all the time. It was thought that the Indians made this
bowl. You could also crawl back into the cave. The map indicated a system of roadways not used in fifty years. Talk about
the road not taken.
Mr.
Gray was also kind enough to loan us a photo taken in 1905 of a group consisting of himself, his mother, and friends Mayme
Nicklaus, Gussie Culter, Martha Rutledge and Lily West all dressed in their Sunday finest. Mrs. Halcomb stated in her letter
that the cave was located two hundred feet from her Daddy’s house. "It was on the road east from Wood School about
a quarter of a mile". Traveling from Wood School one would have to cross over to the north side of Middlefork Creek where
the road ran in front of the cave.
Harvey B. Gray, Rt. I Box 137, Dupont, In 47231 was born to Ida Bell Gray and Benson Gray on Oct 25, 1897. The Gray
farm was located in Section 20, Monroe Township, Jefferson Proving Ground about one half mile due west of the Post Office
at RIDPATH. Their neighbors were Jess Keller, Charley Jones, Kathryn Sarver, the Bakers, and the Paugh's. Mr. Gray's
Father and Mother attended Monroe Church; while Harvey attended Wirt Baptist Church. As we stated before Mr. Gray went to
Wood School where his teacher was Lula Marshall. In 1915 and 1916 Harvey went west to become a cowboy. He worked on the Ramsey
Ranch in Proctor, Colorado.
I am sure the reader would assume that we could just run out to the cave and begin spelunking, but wrong!!. In the
first place the employees did not know where the cave was and furthermore had not even heard about it. In the second place
the map drawn by Mrs. Halcomb placed the entire area in one of the hottest and most contaminated areas at JPG. Several months
went by before we could attempt to visit the cave, because it is in the center of the testing action and bullets and projectiles
fly over it all the time. Our Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians are the only ones allowed access to the area.
Don Elrod operating an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier up old County
road to Gray’s cave |
The opportunity came on the 20th of November. JPG's EOD personnel were checking an area out along Middlefork Creek
checking for unexploded munitions and evaluating the site to conduct a controlled burn. The temperature did not get to the
prescribed 60 degrees F so the fires were not set; however the crew found Gray's Cave. The crew consisted of Jerry Walker,
Don Elrod, and Tony Hyden, JPG EOD personnel with Mike Moore invited along to photograph the area.
The group rode in an Armored Personnel
Carrier through the old Jones farm. To their right was the old Jones silo still standing after fifty years like a sentinel
guiding our course to Middlefork Creek. Upon entering the creek, Don Elrod turned the great behemoth to the west and with
water and mud churning up an each side the personnel carrier roared to its destination as if it was all powerful; however,
after splashing down the creek a few hundred feet Don quickly braked the monstrous vehicle dead in its tracks.
Right in front if the
vehicle a giant tree had fallen from one bank to the other and blocked our passage. Not even the mighty army war wagon could
push passed mother nature's footbridge. Mr Elrod was not fazed. He quickly braked to the right and up went the APC sliding
and roaring over the north bank of Middlefork. The old county road was located and the APC traveled over small trees six or
seven feet tall with diameters of one to two inches. A fork in the road was encountered with one fork going due north, the
other crossed Middlefork Creek and went West then South to Wood School and on to Callaway Station Road.
Since there was not a wide enough space
to turn the APC around, The group proceeded on foot and found the cave. It had a large opening and enough room for four people
to stand in the entrance. The cave went through the earth approximately forty yards where Jerry Walker found a stick that
he thought had washed down from another opening somewhere.
From a historic point of view the cave is extremely interesting.
There are many inscriptions carved into the mouth and walls of the cave. William G. Thorne 1879 and Leonard Spann 1901 are
two that are extremely readable. There are at least fifty to one hundred names that speak of a procession of pioneers who
paused at Gray's cave long enough to reflect bygone days. Upon leaving the cave it was decided that Jerry Walker would
proceed on foot back to a waiting truck. Jerry walked to the nearby foundation of the former Gray home. He picked up a brick
from an abandoned chimney and brought it back to be presented to Mr. Gray as a souvenir.
Since the APC could not turn around, the
other three men decided to drive west across Middlefork creek to look for the remains of Wood School. Mr Hyden took over the
driving chore and once again the mighty war horse snorted and bounced up and over the bank of Middlefork creek in quest of
the foundation of the one room school where in 1905 Lula Marshall held held classes for students like Harvey Gray.
Whatever the expectations of this crew were, all hopes were dashed when a field
of solid brush was encountered. An unending sea of trees quickly bowed before the APC, but all traces of humanity were obliterated.
Although it seemed that the crew had entered a time warp, this sense of history quickly disolved when a wind annemometer for
the F firing position was encountered bringing them back into the 1990's.
GENSING HUNTERS:
Harvey Gray, again through His daughter, noted in his letter that we should contact
a Mr. Lowell Sproesig, Rt. 1, Dupont for more information on the cave. Mr. Sproesig lived for a time approximately one half
a mile south of the cave then worked for the proving ground on a gun crew at the West Stockade and farmed on the side. When
he was not busy he hunted and sold a plant called Ginseng.
Orientals would pay dearly for this plant even then.
When asked why those foreign countries would value the plant so highly, Mr. Sproesig would quietly laugh and say that the
Orientals felt that Ginseng would make an old man feel young. Later on in the war he worked at the bomb field and dug up 500
pound bombs (duds) with a shovel. He was drafted into the Navy and left the bomb field just before George H. Miller returned.
Many
people supplemented their meager incomes hunting and selling Gensing and when the government took over the land in 1941 a
friend of his received a one day pass from the JPG Commander to the area around Middlefork creek to hunt Ginseng. That day
did not suffice, so the friend sneaked in to the area one day without permission and got into trouble. Loud explosions erupted
and bullets started singing through the trees forcing Mr. Sproesig's friend to dive into Gray's Cave. This interloper
was pinned down for three or four hours in the cave until darkness came and he quickly exited the proving ground, never to
return, hopefully.
