Real photo postcard by Galena photographer, D. F. Fox.
Gentry Cave, a remote cave—on private land and hard to get to—three miles south of Galena in Stone County, was described by Louella Agnes Owen in Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills (1898). Hiking through the woods after the mail coach’s wheel broke, the intrepid lady cave explorer found the “broken” landscape captivating:
“The topography was . . . very beautiful with the dense forest lighted by the slanting yellow rays of the afternoon sun. The way leads up to the “ridge road” which is at length abandoned for no road at all and descending through the forest, more than half the distance down to the James River flowing at the base of the hill, we come suddenly in view of the cave entrance, which is probably one of the most magnificent pieces of natural architecture ever seen.”
From James Fork of the White: “She found the cave interior worth the walk but does not mention the abundance of bat guano that would later provide the basis for an unusual industry. During the lean Depression years, one C. L. Weekly and two hires shoveled tons of dried bat manure into hundred-pound bags and shipped it off to be used for greenhouse fertilizer. He got $35 a ton. “
The commercial exploitation of bat guano was also the first impetus for the development of Marvel Cave, which became the centerpiece of a much later tourist attraction in Stone County—Silver Dollar City.
In Caves of Missouri (1956), J Harlan Bretz discusses Gentry Cave’s geology: “A rock shelter at Camp Ramona, 85 feet below cliff top and 50 feet above James River contains four of the five entrances to this joint-controlled cave system. Words are useless in describing the detailed interaction of passages; the cave pattern is too complicated. … One place in the cave showed cherty gravel, but there is no other evidence for vadose occupation of this splendid phreatic cave system. No red clay remnants and very little dripstone were seen anywhere in the cave.”
Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.