San Antonio Daily Light

ROBBERS' CAVE EXPLORERS
And Their Account Of the Adventure

Yesterday, July 9, a party of 16 persons, including three ladies, visited Robbers' Cave, about 15 miles northwest of San Antonio. The party consisted of Captain W. J. Locke, W. M. Locke (county surveyor), Sam and Girard Locke, Miss Zadie Lacy, Captain Crain, two sons, and five others. They went down into the cave, leaving L. M. Lacy and wife to keep guard at the entrance.

The entrance is barely large enough for a large man to go down and descends perpendicularly about 35 feet, thence opens out into several large chambers, descending rapidly about 15 feet to the east, thence bears off south and southwest, connecting with a chamber leading west from main entrance, which also descends quite rapidly for about 15 feet in which there is a small spring of limpid water, very palatable to drink. The party visited four other caves in the same vicinity, exploring all of them to some extent. One of them descended perpendicularly 65 or 70 feet, into which W. M. Locke, Captain Crain and son descended. They had a rope 130 feet long, which was doubled and knotted, for the descent. Sam Locke descended first into the deep one, and when he had reached the end of the rope and being suspended by the hands, he could not touch bottom by several feet, and a rattlesnake was singing below. He dropped down, the snake being a few feet to one side. Wm. Locke also, swinging from the end of the rope dropped by him and they killed the snake. They also found the remains of a large bear, and a large petrified bone, which they brought up. The whole region around this place seems to be cavernous. In 1866 W. J. Locke had a dog that run in after a coon under the mountain where Mr. Aue's spring comes out and was gone nearly four days before he found his way out. Captain Locke says the way in the cave is full of crags, boulders and rocks, and is very rough. The cave is beautiful in the extreme, full of beautiful crystals, stalactites and stalagmites, several large specimens of which Captain Locke brought to the city with him this morning and left at the LIGHT office.