|
TEXAS, USA
An Underground Jewel Box
By Sheryl Smith-Rodgers
Gerry Ingham will never forget that terrible day in November 2006 when a tour
guide burst into her office and blurted out the horrifying news: “The
Butterfly’s been broken!”
Delicate and beautiful, the winged crystalline formation for decades had starred
as the premier formation at the Caverns of Sonora, her family’s spectacular
show cave in West Texas. Within a matter of seconds, though, someone on a tour
had covertly snapped off the right wing and left with the piece. Law officials
later shrugged off the incident—listed as a misdemeanor—and blamed
the damage on an “accidental” bump.
More than a year later, the wing remains lost, and no one’s been charged.
Even a $20,000 reward offered by Ingham and her brother, Seco Mayfield, has
failed to turn up any information. (If returned, experts could use the wing
to repair the formation.)
From the family’s loss, though, has come good. In June, the Texas Legislature
upped the penalty for vandalizing a Texas cave from a Class A misdemeanor to
a state jail felony. “That was a victory for all of our state’s
caves,” Ingham says.
More so, the new law further solidifies what Ingham considers her mission in
life: to care for and protect a precious natural treasure that also replenishes
the vital source of water beneath her oft-dry land, the Edwards Aquifer.
Ever since she can remember, Ingham, 64, has been indelibly connected to the
Caverns of Sonora, once called Mayfield Cave. Sometime after the turn of the
century, her grandparents bought a 5,000-acre cattle ranch in Sutton County.
Little did they know that beneath the gently rolling, grassy slopes—then
dotted with live oak, mesquite and cedar—stretched an astonishing cavern
with magnificent formations. In the 1940s, Ingham’s parents, Stanley and
Elizabeth Mayfield, moved to Mayfield Ranch.
As a child growing up in the early ‘50s, Ingham and her friends would
slip away and scamper inside the cave’s mouth. “We used to get in
trouble,” she recalls with a smile. “Mother would always know where
we’d been ‘cause we’d have cave mud on us.”
“Numerous legends account for the cave’s discovery, said to have
been found around 1900. But nothing was actually ever recorded,” Ingham
says. “The story I heard growing up was that a sheepherder’s dog
found the hole. Later, when the entrance became publicly known, my dad gated
it to protect people who wanted to go inside.”
In 1955 a team of explorers ventured across a narrow ledge deep into the cavern’s
interiors and saw—for the first time—thousands of gleaming stalagmites,
stalactites and other formations. That expedition and many others produced seven
miles of mapped passageways on four different levels.
“They brought back color slides of what they’d seen,” Ingham
recalls. “I was 11 or 12 years old at the time. I remember them showing
the slides to us in our living room. We were all awed and amazed. After having
played in the inactive section of the cave near the entrance, it was amazing
to see the pretty parts.”
Soon thereafter, cave developer Jack Burch and a partner leased Mayfield Cave
with the intent of opening it for commercial tours. In July 1960, after months
of construction, guides escorted thousands of eager visitors through the Caverns
of Sonora along a new 1,800-foot trail. In 1961, the partners added another
1,700 feet of trails. A visitors’ center and campgrounds were constructed,
too. In 1965, the Caverns of Sonora were named a National Natural Landmark.
These days, Ingham rarely treks through the caverns. She’s too busy manning
the cave’s day-to-day operations, conferring with her ranch foreman about
her cattle and other livestock, and keeping up with three grandchildren.
“I always think I’m going to walk in the cave and look at this
or that,” she says. “I’d like to use a distance-measuring
device that my son gave me and measure each segment of our tour more accurately.
But that never happens because as soon as I get to the visitors’ center,
I’ve got too much paperwork to do. On busy days, I run a register, too.”
Those busy days normally come in the summer. To handle the increased number
of visitors, Ingham hires extra employees to give tours and work in the gift
shop, which stocks souvenirs, snacks and the shop’s popular fudge.
When they can, other family members work at the caverns, too. Seventeen-year-old
grandson Colton Moore conducts tours. Ingham’s nephew Ed Mayfield, 25,
mows the grounds and leads tours, too. Granddaughters Steely Ingham, 17, and
sister Stella, 13, help in the gift shop.
Although ranching is also a huge part of her life, Ingham is bonded more deeply
to the caverns she knows and loves so well. “We have a wonderful cave,”
she says. “It’s gorgeous. Our caverns are one of the most highly
decorated caves in the country. Here, tours are an intimate experience because
they’re kept small at 12 people or less, and everything is so close up.”
Breathtaking best describes the cavern’s numerous rooms and passages,
each filled with something different—delicate “soda straws”
(long, slender tubes that hang from ceilings), helictites (crystalline shapes,
such as “the Butterfly,” that grow from walls, ceilings and floors),
or coral (formations that resemble undersea coral).
Two sealed entrances—both equipped with double doors—maintain the
cavern’s humidity at a constant high level, moisture that’s needed
to ensure the continued dripping that gradually creates formations. “By
keeping the air flow out, we’re seeing brand new active growth,”
Ingham says.
These days, guided tours at Caverns of Sonora still pass by the Butterfly.
Though disfigured, its fragile beauty continues to awe those who stop and linger
for a longer look. Some even cry.
“We decided that rather than bypassing it, we needed to make people aware
of what happened,” Ingham explains. “It took thousands of years
for the Butterfly to form, and now it’s been stolen from future generations.”
She pauses briefly, then adds sadly, “And it happened under my watch.”
--------------------
Southwest Texas Electric Cooperative serves the Caverns of Sonora.
|