After Cave was sealed?

[Mitchell_78613]

After the cave was sealed, what did Earl Dorr do for the last 20 years of his life? My theory is that, in 1934 he sealed the cave because it just became illegal to own gold, so he sealed it for safe keeping till he could come back. I think he never went back, because it was illegal to sell or possess, so he just stashed it. Really wasnt worth risking his life for something he couldnt sell. Wasnt he from money? So it wasnt like he was poor or starving. Someone please clue me in.

 

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[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Hi Mitch, under the circumatances, the best that I can do is to loan you my OUIJI board, and agree with you..

Marc, are you through with it, or did you loan it to Jeff?

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Chisos]

I thought he sealed it and then couldn't get back in. Really not important. Hope you find it someday.

 

[Connecticut Sam]

No, I hope to find it one day.

 

[austin]

LOL

 

[augoldminer]

It was not illegal to mine gold so i would not understand why, There were many miners in the desert at the time up till WW2.

The story i heard was he sealed in claim jumpers by blasting them in the cave.

I also heard he may have found another way in and when he found the claim jumpers he trapped them and later went back in by way of the other entrance.
There was a Indian tale if a underground cave just like Dorr's cave but to the north in Death Valley.

I looked for it since 1974 when i got out of the navy.

I believe any entrances could be found at night during the winter by looking for hot air coming from underground with a thermographic camera.

The reported size of the cave would cause large air flow from pressure changes and they would be hotter then the winter air on the surface.

 

[Follows Camp Craig]

Hmm, I guess it is safe to say that I am the only person on this site (other than Bob) who has actually been inside the Kokoweef mine.

I even have a stalactite door stop to prove it!
( Although, the way it is oriented at the moment it appears to be a stalagmite )

Our group would pry engine block sized stalagmite from the floor, winch it up and use the ore cart to get it out.
weigh it and pay for it by the pound.

Is there a natural entrance? yes. Any passages to lower caverns? all lower portions of the cavern are blocked with clay. Gold? no. Is the place impressive? no.
Does an engine block sized stalagmite make really big book ends? yes.

Craig

 

[Follows Camp Craig]

Okay, I will stick my head out a little further.

On my last visit to Kokoweef, we somehow managed an invite to the "Crystal cave/ cavern" operation and as I remember this was an entirely separate from the Kokoweef mine
but located just down the ridgeline. The minerals were more vibrant in color, some passageways had to be low crawled in order to get to the next cavern, now this place had some character.
One room even had a complete "butter churn". After what seemed like a couple of hours we exited the system a couple of hundred feet above our point of entry for some much needed fresh air, down the switchbacks and back to the trucks. Our only souvenirs included photographs, dirty jeans and what lingered in our lungs and nostrils, the ammonia smell from the use of "AMFO".

Now before someone calls B.S. as some of you might have already.
Our group leader is still alive and kicking and still might visit these sights to this day so my posts are purely my recollections from 1983 as well as my opinions.
Larry Bidwell and his wife Bonnie Have invested over 30 years educating us "kids" through their not so ordinary lapidary class by allowing us to experience
places like Kokoweef, palo verde, Pala, Trona, Wiley Wells, Bouse, Jalama beach, and even Calico to name just a few.

As far as the legend goes, well the place is real, the caverns are real, there are other underground rivers in the world so why not at Kokoweef?

Thanks

Craig

 

[Las Vegas Bob]

kokoweef

I have not been back to the Kokoweef for many years. But I will share some of my knowledge of the mountain. The Kokoweef property is privately owned. Earl Dorr blasted the cavern system shut after he found other prospectors climbing around in the caverns. Dorr claimed he had observed sunlight coming into the cavern system from several different areas while he was exploring. Dorr figured if he could keep others out of the main cavern system he could locate one of the areas where he thought he saw light. He spent the rest of his life looking for these other entrances to no avail. Now for my experiences while working there. I worked with Joe Kelly, helping to blast and mucked out several hundred feet of tunnel while looking for the cavern system. While drilling for a blast if we hit a void where the steel drilling rod would just advance forward quickly we would pull the steel and hold a Zippo lighter up in front of the hole at certain times the flame of the lighter would suck in towards the hole if this was done at a different time of day the flame would be blowing back towards su. I had tide charts for the west coast and the direction of the flame would coincide with the tide going in and or out. That was exciting to find a void and when we did the blasting we always hoped we had hit the cavern leading down to the river of gold.There was a strong static charge in the walls of the tunnel, one day I was stringing lights in a new section of tunnel we had just mucked out, the generator that provided power to the mine area was turned off, i was on an aluminum ladder working with my miners light to see. The ladder was leaning up against the tunnel wall, my arm touched the ladder while I was twisting two ends of the wire together so I could install a wire nut. As everything came together a static charge knocked me off the ladder. We did carry OSHA approved breathing devices while working in the tunnels. On more than one occasion while taking a break from drilling we were sitting in the tunnel when we heard what sounded like a cave in, something you don't want to hear while your under ground. Each time we would race to a place where we could see the tunnels portal and each time we were able to see sunlight, so obviously the cave in's where happening not in the tunnel itself but within it's walls. I have been to the cave Craig has mentioned. I have also been in the tunnels on the other side of the mountain where Joe had manged to blast a vertical tunnel and install a ladder system which lead upwards to the area where Dorr blasted the tunnel shut. Why didn't we dig there one might ask, it was a small cavern room full of very large builders of which we had no way of moving out of the room. When I first visited Kokoweef our access point was climbing down a chain ladder to the point Joe had blasted a tunnel to. The name Dorr was smoked on the wall above the large pile of boulders as if made by a carbide miners light. I would like to say again the Kokoweef Mountain, the tunnels and caverns are all privately owned please respect that fact if you visit there and contact one of then members who live in the camp near the mountain.