(Of course, feel free to Contact me if you know anything about the caves. I'd love to put more information on this portion of the site.)
I have been fascinated with the network of caves that are supposedly under the city of St. Louis ever since I was a little kid. One day, while trying to find a birthday present for my brother, I stumbled upon a book entitled, "Lost Caves of St. Louis."
Written in 1964, it seemed a bit outdated, but I was enthralled. I bought it for him, wrapped it up and gave it away.
Three years later I borrowed the book from the library and decided to make this site. The goal is to become a central repository of current information about the caves under St. Louis.
There isn't much here because the caves' mystery is only exceeded by their power (HA!) but because of it I was invited to a tour of Lemp and Cherokee.
Here's an unfinished Google map that shows the approximate locations of each cave mentioned in "Lost Caves of St. Louis". A similar map can be found on pages 20 – 24 in the book. Of course, I haven't taken the time to find the coordinates of each location... If you want to help, find a few and send them to me. (please? It isn't hard, just google map the intersections and write down the coordinates... Should take you a half hour, tops.)
- AnheuserBuschCave East side of Carondelet (now s. broadway and arsenal)
- Bremen N. Broadway and Bremen Ave.
- CherokeeBrewery 2726 Cherokee
- CherokeeCave. Cherokee & 7th
- StLouisBrewery. Franklin between 2nd and Broadway
- ConsumersBrewery Cave. 1920 Shenandoah
- EnglishCave. East of Benton Park between Arsenal and Wyoming
- HomeBreweryCave. Corner of miami and wisconsin
- HydePark Salisbury and North Florrisant
- IndianMound Broadway near Brooklyn Ave.
- Kerzingers Southeast Corner of Broadway and Tyler
- KlausmanCave 8639 Broadway
- LayfayetteCave 1714 Cass Ave.
- LempCave South of Cherokee Cave on S. Broadway
- NaturalCaves - 15a. 2005 Benton southwest to Ecoff and Manchester Ave. 15b. Hudler and Hoffman
- PhoenixBreweryCave (old staehlin brewery) 18th and Lafayette
- ShnaidersBreweryCave Chouteau ave. between armstrong and mississippi
- SidneyStreetBreweryCaves (most likely all the same cave) (PUT ON MAP!) -whitteman and rost weiss, 211 anna (now st. george) -theo schwer, 709-15 lynch -pittsburg,rosati (now 12th) and lynch -jackson brewery, same block as above -arsenal 11th and Lynch -suesert and berger, south side of sidney and west of 7th -schlop, sidney street north near buel (now 10th) -gambrinus, sidney and 10th -koch and feldkamp, south sidney -schilling and schneider, south sidney
- UhrigsCave Locust and Washington Ave. beneath 18th street between jefferson and delmar
- WildCaves 20a. North of California and Sidney 20b. East under nebraska near lafayette 20c. 1900 South Compton Ave.
- WinkelmeyerAndExcelsiorCaveStretches between 17th and 18th under Market
The book seems to have been reprinted in 1996 and includes a forward by Ron Elz. he mentions an entrance to the Lemp Caverns through a lidded opening in a parking lot.
He also mentions an entrance to the Cherokee Cave in the basement of the former Cherokee Brewery brew house. It says the building is located just east of Iowa St. on the south side of Cherokee Street.
There seems to be a man-made thing called Glasgow Cavern on teh northwest corner of Cass and Garrison Avenue. (PUT THIS ON THE MAP).
He says the Uhrig Cave is still under the Main Post Office and Union Station. (PUT THIS ON THE MAP)
There seems to be a number of caves between Washington Boulevard and Locust Street on the west side of Jefferson (PUT THIS ON THE MAP)
Some Links
an article about the Lemp caves:
http://bestof.riverfronttimes.com/bestof/award.php?award=30716
Caves Threatened by County Development - link
heres how you get into lemp cave: http://www.missourighosts.net/investigations03e.html - and "You don't crawl in the expected way, on your tummy, walkie-talkie in hand, wearing a spelunker's helmet, or plot strategies with subterranean maps. You just walk into a building, turn on a few lights and proceed to a cargo elevator that drops you three stories straight down into one part of the cave system. If you want to travel to another leg of the network, you can either wander through the dank, muddy tunnels or you can get back on the elevator, resurface, walk a few hundred yards in the open air, enter another building and submerge again. It's a funny way to spelunk, but it works well for the cowardly and the claustrophobic."
Here is a reader contributed link (thanks!) to a local news show segment called "Places you can't go." They went into a mystery part of the cherokee cave (I don't think this is cherokee cave... it is something different) and rafted around for a bit:
http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?aid=67657&bw=
or, for a direct link to the streaming video:
mms://wm.ksdk.gannett.edgestreams.net/news/013108_underground_ksdk.wmv
Let's get a group together and convince Will Liebermann to give us a key to the pace.
Another link to a video about a cave tour. I love how he says the one ice shaft is in the middle of the intersection of Cherokee and DeMenil Pl.
another entrance bites the dust:
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/lempdig/history.html
unrelated to caves of st. louis... punks in the "caves" under paris:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2554240.ece\
http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?p=60176&sid=81003ef834c9c358b95e174a2c20b798\
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/undergroun_stl.htm