1320
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Interesting Discovery yesterday
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KY Hiker
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Looks like old drilling marks, similar to what was used to set a charge with. Dynamite or black powder? I can't tell by the detail but it could be air-chisel or jack-hammer marks as well. I would guess without context of the surrounding area that it would be more modern than the latter 1700's. Maybe from a previous searcher? The color running vertically down out of the hole in the cracked rock in the first photo resembles aluminum oxide. I heard back in the late 19th and early 20th century that blasting was not uncommon in rock houses on private land. Folks either quarrying their own rock or trying to make use of the natural shelter and make it safer for their live stock to be kept in by blasting out what looked to be loose rock. I guess a Swift Silver Mine searcher could have done the same kind of damage as well. Kind of hard to tell anything without a larger scope picture of the rocks together, if they were together.
Howerton Bradwell
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Good find 1320!
KY Hiker
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You know, you just may have run up on an old still site. It doesn't look flat enough 'inside' for it to be for livestock sheltering. I also would not think it to be used for quarrying their own rock due to all the bits and pieces laying around. Does it site high up on the ridge or closer to the water? With the fire pit (blackened rock) and the drill marks you just may be on to something interesting there.
OP
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1320
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Appreciate the feedback. Agree, couldn't use this one for livestock. It sits high on a ridge and close to water. Agree also with your observation regarding the bits and pieces, this place is littered with that. Ironically, I didn't even notice the blackened rocks on my first trip, too focused on all the drill holes. I only photographed a few of them, they are all over the shelter; front, back, sides. There were a few attempts to drill horizontally...crazy. In one corner there's the remains of a small iron kettle and some other unidentifiable piece of iron. Kicked around the sand in that area and found a flat silver plated one piece shanked button. Guessing it dates early to mid 1800's.
KY Hiker
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Interesting, it sits high on the ridge AND close to the water? I assume you mean water flows over it? It does not look large enough (200+ ft high) in the pictures to encompass ridge to creek bottom. I have a question as to its location. I have heard that Mrs. Timmon's did some blasting in some rock shelters near Half Moon rock in the Red River Gorge as well as around the area of the Swift Camp Creek and Red River junction looking for the covered up mine entrance. Is your find in those general areas? It would explain the drill marks if it were.
adtofca
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the depression the CCC and works project would take men out and they would blast rock to use for a bed for a road or to use for a dam that they stack the rock up for . I see the drill holes every where in the deserts and there is always some old construction thing there like a dam or old stone shack
or water tank near by with a windmill . yeah those are very common in a lot of areas . just old WPA works project stuff .
i know a funny story about a man that found 3 drilled holes in three rocks and stuck 6 foot sticks in them and then he tried to see along
a line from one tip to the other and he went to the bluff and dug because he thought he found a treasure place by using the sticks
to show where it was . he dug and he blew up a bunch of rock and dug some more. i think his hole was almost as deep as the one in his head
before he quit . very funny ideas that people think when they see man made things in the desert .
or water tank near by with a windmill . yeah those are very common in a lot of areas . just old WPA works project stuff .
i know a funny story about a man that found 3 drilled holes in three rocks and stuck 6 foot sticks in them and then he tried to see along
a line from one tip to the other and he went to the bluff and dug because he thought he found a treasure place by using the sticks
to show where it was . he dug and he blew up a bunch of rock and dug some more. i think his hole was almost as deep as the one in his head
before he quit . very funny ideas that people think when they see man made things in the desert .
Rebel - KGC
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Blue Ridge Parkway was built that way by the CCC, etc...
OP
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1320
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1320
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The "cave" in these pictures is most likely the cave that's referenced in the 1901 Hazel Green newspaper article. It is located in Coal Cave branch, locally known as Cold Cave now. I have been in every single rock shelter in and around Coal Cave the past three years, this is the only one that has obvious signs of drilling. Most of the others have small coal seams in them, a rusted pick axe here, a rusted shovel there. Highly doubt anything in this area can be attributed to the John Swift legend. Most of this area is Daniel Boone National Forest so permission to examine them isn't a problem. Tough hiking though.
KY Hiker
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Well everyone knows Swift was the only one to have shovels and picks! ... LOL
Reminds me of a guy I met while camping in the RRGorge in the early 1990s. He was convinced the rock house below Eagles Pt. was a Swift location. He pointed out a hominy hole there and said that was where they 'made' the coins. Sometimes a person wants something to be so badly that they convince themselves that what they are seeing is something 'other' than what their eyes are showing them. That guy wanted to argue with me all that morning until I said, 'if that is a hole to mold coins in, then surely down below you can find some slag among all those rocks and boulders?' That pretty much hushed him up.
Reminds me of a guy I met while camping in the RRGorge in the early 1990s. He was convinced the rock house below Eagles Pt. was a Swift location. He pointed out a hominy hole there and said that was where they 'made' the coins. Sometimes a person wants something to be so badly that they convince themselves that what they are seeing is something 'other' than what their eyes are showing them. That guy wanted to argue with me all that morning until I said, 'if that is a hole to mold coins in, then surely down below you can find some slag among all those rocks and boulders?' That pretty much hushed him up.
Curtis
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DSN, was that on Caney Creek? The mine everyone seems to know about in the sharp bend has some of those drilled holes in a group. I too had read where out wet the Spaniards would drill holes for sighting a certain monument or location. The use of the horizontal holes could also be to put a stick in to hold clothes, pots and pans, etc. or holes they were going to blast but decided not to.
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