The Names on the Walls: Early Visitors to Lehman Cave, Nevada

Nearly 2,200 signatures and initials on the walls of Lehman Cave, in Great Basin National Park, had been photographed and recorded when researcher David Harwood wrote this, the second part of a study of the cave's historic inscriptions. Many are repeats — the same person returning, or signing in several places on one trip. William R. Bassett's name or initials appear 14 times.

David Harwood photographs signatures in a low passage at the bottom of the Talus Room in Lehman Cave. NPS photo by Gretchen Baker.

The Bassetts

Bassett's first visit seems to have been on September 12, 1885, within five months of the cave's exploration. With him were his wife, Georgie; his stepdaughter, Edna Bryant; and James H. Harris, who by 1890 owned the Capital Saloon in Ely. A year later Edna married J.B. Simpson — deputy sheriff, livery stable owner and mining investor — and the couple honeymooned at the cave, where she signed herself Mrs. Edna Bryant. Her husband's name does not seem to appear.

In 1885 the Bassetts lived in Steptoe Valley, White Pine County. William Bassett first appears in the record as a gambler who owned a saloon and racetrack in the mining town of Ward, Nevada. His card games drew players from Cherry Creek, Hamilton and Eureka, and when a game finally broke up, the ground in front of the saloon would be covered in playing cards. Elected sheriff of White Pine County on the Republican ticket in 1884, he owned a livery stable in Taylor by 1885 and soon opened a restaurant in Ward. In the summer of 1887 he opened a new saloon in Ely with a Bengal tiger on show to bring in customers, and in 1888 he was re-elected sheriff. The family seems to have prospered: in 1889 Bassett was assessed $3,580 on real estate. The last dated Bassett signature in the cave is from 1918.

Edwin Clay and the lost party

Edwin W. Clay, a contemporary of the Bassetts, is well documented both inside the cave, where his surname appears at least 30 times, and outside it. He was among those who claimed to be the cave's first explorers. He had come to Snake Valley with horses bought in California to sell to local ranchers, stayed, and in 1884 married Margaret "Maggie" Burbank.

In a 1932 interview in Salt Lake City, at 75, Clay recalled that first exploration. Seven of them went in with only three candles, their pockets full of charcoal, stopping every little way to draw an arrow on the wall pointing back to the entrance. They came to a round hole just big enough to crawl through — too small for Ab Lehman, who was too stout and waited nearby. Five men and a boy crawled through, as if through a tunnel, and explored for about a mile among stalactites and stalagmites. When they tried to go back to Lehman, they could not find the hole. They searched and searched, then decided to burn one candle at a time to save light, hoping Lehman, near the entrance, would get them out. While they sat on ledges wondering what would become of them, the boy, 10-year-old Ed Lake, spotted the hole — and, Clay remembered, they nearly knocked the wall down all trying to squeeze through at once. They had been in the cave seven hours, lost for most of it.

Edwin and Maggie Clay had four sons, Leslie, Burton, Clarence "Stanley" and Edwin Jr. All four names are in the cave, with no dates beside them. Edwin Jr.'s must have been written before 1907, the year he drowned in Lake Creek Reservoir; Stanley died a few years later, trampled while herding horses. Life was not easy for the Clays, in the cave or out of it.

More stories to tell

Other names in Lehman Cave lead to tales of murder, horse thieves, adultery and even Second World War espionage. Most of the visitors, though, lived ordinary lives as ranchers, farmers, doctors, pharmacists, miners, shopkeepers and saloon owners. The names belong both to people who passed through White Pine County and to people who stayed, whose descendants still live in the towns of Nevada and Utah around the park.

Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

Sources

• David Harwood, researcher, "Stories of Early Lehman Cave Visitors," The Midden (Great Basin National Park), vol. 15, no. 2, winter 2015, National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/stories-of-early-lehman-cave-visitors.htm