The Postcard
A 1906 postcard published by J.D. Strickler.
On the back of the card the publisher states:
'Ten cards, ten different views of
Cavern Scenery mailed to any
address for seventeen cents.
Descriptive book mailed free on
application.
Luray Caverns Corporation, Luray,
Virginia'.
The card was posted on Wednesday the 28th. March 1906 to:
Miss K.A. Young,
Kingston Avenue,
Providence,
Rhode Island.
The brief pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Nothing like this on
your California trip.
W.R.P."
Luray Caverns
Luray Caverns are just west of Luray, Virginia. The cave system has drawn many visitors since its discovery in 1878. It is generously adorned with columns, mud flows, stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and mirrored pools.
The caverns are best known for the Great Stalacpipe Organ, where stalactites of various sizes can be tapped to produce tones similar to those of xylophones, tuning forks, or bells.
Visitors enter the cave via a path that curves downward through the caverns, eventually reaching Dream Lake. The path proceeds to the Wishing Well and a war memorial honouring veterans from Page County.
It then ascends to a small passage past the Fried Eggs rock formation and returns to ground level through a smaller passage to the entrance. The entire trek is 1.5 mi (2.4 km) long, and can be completed in 45 minutes to 1 hour.
The Discovery of Luray Caverns
Luray Caverns were discovered on the 13th. August 1878 by five local men, including Andrew J. Campbell (a local tinsmith), his 13-year-old nephew Quint, and local photographer Benton Stebbins.
Their attention had been attracted by a protruding limestone outcrop and by a nearby sinkhole noted to have cool air issuing from it. The men started to dig and, about four hours later, a hole was created for the smallest men (Andrew and Quint) to squeeze through, slide down a rope and explore by candlelight.
The first column they saw was named the Washington Column, in honour of the first United States President.
Upon entering the area called Skeleton's Gorge, bone fragments (among other artefacts) were found embedded in calcite. Other traces of previous human occupation included pieces of charcoal, flint, and human bone fragments embedded in stalagmite.
A skeleton, thought to be that of a Native American girl, was estimated, from the current rate of stalagmitic growth, to be not more than 500 years old.
Legal and Financial Issues
Sam Buracker owned the land on which the cavern entrance was found. Because of uncollected debts, a court-ordered auction of all his land was held on the 14th. September 1878. Andrew Campbell, William Campbell, and Benton Stebbins purchased the cave tract, but kept their discovery secret until after the sale.
Because the true value of the property was not realized until after the purchase, legal wrangling ensued for the next two years with attempts to prove fraud and decide rightful ownership. In April 1881, the court nullified the purchase by the cave discoverers.
William T. Biedler (Buracker's major creditor) then sold the property to The Luray Cave and Hotel Company. Under bankruptcy proceedings in 1893, the property was bought by Luray Caverns Company.
Early Exploration of the Caverns
Despite the legal disputes (or maybe because of them), rumours of the caverns' impressive formations spread quickly. Professor Jerome J. Collins, the Arctic explorer, postponed his departure on an ill-fated North Pole expedition to visit the caverns. The Smithsonian Institution sent a delegation of nine scientists to investigate.
Early Publicity
The next edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica devoted an unprecedented page and a half to the cave's wonders, and Alexander J. Brand, a correspondent for the New York Times, was the first professional travel writer to visit and popularise the caverns.
Early Air Conditioning
In 1901, the cool, the pure air of Luray Caverns was forced through the rooms of the Limair Sanatorium, erected on the summit of Cave Hill by Colonel T.C. Northcott, former president of the Luray Caverns Corporation. The Colonel billed the sanatorium as the first air-conditioned home in the United States.
On the hottest day in summer, the interior of the house was kept at a cool and comfortable 70 °F (21 °C). By sinking a shaft five feet (1.5 m) in diameter down to a cavern chamber and installing a fan, Northcott's system could change the air throughout the entire house every four minutes.
Tests made over successive years by means of culture media and sterile plates were considered to have demonstrated the "perfect bacteriologic purity" of the air, purportedly a benefit to those suffering various respiratory illnesses.
This "purity" was explained by a natural filtration process with air drawn into the caverns through myriad rocky crevices, then further cleansing by air floating over the transparent springs and pools, the product finally being supplied to the inmates of the sanatorium.
The "Limair" burned down in the early 1900's but was subsequently rebuilt as a brick building. The Luray Caverns Corporation, which was chartered by Northcott, purchased the caverns in February 1905 and continues to hold the property to this day.
The temperature inside the caverns is uniformly 54 °F (12 °C), comparable to that of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Luray Caverns remain an active cave where new formation deposits accumulate at the rate of about one cubic inch (16 cm3) every 120 years.
Features of the Caverns
The cavern is yellow, brown or red because of water, chemicals and minerals. The Empress Column is a stalagmite 35 feet (11 m) high, rose-coloured, and elaborately draped. The Double Column is made of two fluted pillars side by side, one 25 feet (7.6 m) the other 60 feet (18 m) high, a mass of snowy alabaster. Several stalactites in the Giant's Hall exceed 50 feet (15 m) in length. Pluto's Ghost, a pillar, is a ghostly white.
The cascades are formations like foaming cataracts caught in mid-air and transformed into milk-white or amber alabaster. Brand's Cascade is 40 feet (12 m) high and 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, and is a wax-like white.
The Saracen's Tent is considered to be one of the most well-formed draperies in the world. Flowstone draperies are abundant throughout the cavern and ring like bells when struck heavily by the hand. Their origin and also that of certain so-called scarfs and blankets is from carbonates deposited by water trickling down a sloping and corrugated surface. Sixteen of these alabaster scarfs hang side by side in Hovey's Balcony, three white and fine as crape shawls, thirteen striated like agate with various shades of brown.
Streams and true springs are absent, but there are hundreds of basins, varying from 1 to 50 feet (0.30 to 15.24 m) in diameter, and from 6 inches (150 mm) to 15 feet (4.6 m) in depth. The water in them contains carbonate of lime, which often forms concretions, called pearls, eggs, and snowballs, according to their size. On fracture these spherical growths are found to be radiated in structure.
Calcite crystals line the sides and bottom of water-filled cavities. Variations of level at different periods are marked by rings, ridges and ruffled margins. These are strongly marked about Broaddus Lake and the curved ramparts of the Castles on the Rhine. Here also are polished stalagmites, a rich buff slashed with white, and others, like huge mushrooms, with a velvety coat of red, purple or olive-tinted crystals.
There is a spring of water called Dream Lake that has an almost mirror-like appearance. Stalactites are reflected in the water making them appear to be stalagmites. This illusion is often so convincing that people are unable to see the real bottom. It looks quite deep, as the stalactites are higher above the water, but at its deepest point the water is only around 20 inches (510 mm) deep. The lake is connected to a spring that continues deeper into the caverns.
The Wishing Well is a green pond with coins three feet (0.91 m) deep at the bottom. Like Dream Lake, the well also gives an illusion, however it is reversed. The pond looks three to four feet (0.91 to 1.22 m) deep but at its deepest point it is actually six to seven feet (1.8 to 2.1 m) deep.
Portions of the caverns are open to the public and have long been electrically lit. The registered number of visitors in 1906 was 18,000, but now, there are 500,000 visitors each year.
Egon Zill
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 28th. March 1906, Egon Gustav Adolf Zill was unfortunately born.
He became a German Schutzstaffel Sturmbannführer and concentration camp commandant.
As a 17-year-old, Zill enlisted in both the Nazi Party and the Sturmabteilung, switching to the SS as soon as it came to his hometown. In 1934 he served as a guard at a concentration camp at Chemnitz.
Zill rose through the ranks at the camps. He moved between camps, seeing service at Dachau, Ravensbrück and Hinzert in various capacities. His first commandant role was at Natzweiler-Struthof before taking charge at Flossenbürg.
His regime as a commandant was also marked by extreme cruelty, and according to the testimonies of inmates, Zill's crimes included tying prisoners to trees before allowing his dogs to savage their genitalia.
Nicknamed 'Little Zill' because of his short stature, he went to ground after the Second World War, but revealed himself when he put his real name on the birth certificate of an illegitimate child.
Death of Egon Zill
Sentenced to life imprisonment by a Munich court, the sentence was reduced on appeal to fifteen years in 1955. Following his release Zill settled in Dachau where he died in 1974.
