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Notes from the Underground

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Rother and her husband, Hubert (who co-authored Lost Caves), used to explore the caves "with a cheap Brownie camera and a few flashlights." Hubert worked for breweries, including Griesedieck, Falstaff and Anheuser-Busch. When the couple began spelunking in the 1960s, many of the neighborhood beer-makers had already closed, so Charlotte searched for old sites by combing through real estate records.

Lost Caves is one of the bibles for St. Louis urban explorers. "When I got that book, I went nuts," says Chris. "I buried my face in it and read it three times over before I put it down."

"There was really quite a system," Charlotte Rother says by telephone from her home in Florida. She describes a lost world that extended from Baden to River Des Peres and included the famed Uhrig's Cave, which housed a theater that later morphed into the Muny Opera. Meandering caves stretched from Jefferson Avenue to Washington Avenue, and on to Union Station and the post office.

"Downtown, across from Union Station, under Market Street and all through that area, I'm sure there are still remnants of caves," she adds. "Many of them also were used during Prohibition, for speakeasies and things. They'd squirrel [beer] away and have some good times down in the caves. One of them was even decorated with Egyptian paintings on the walls and all kinds of neat, exotic stuff."

One architectural survey estimated that more than two dozen breweries sat atop caves. But the biggest system was the Lemp. The south-city pocket ran westward from the river to A-B, beneath the DeMenil Mansion, through the Lemp and along Cherokee Street.

In the 1950s an entrepreneur bought the Lemp complex and dug out 200 feet of clay that separated a few different branches of the system. He constructed a building at Cherokee and Seventh streets, christened his enterprise "Cherokee Cave" and charged admission. The business shut down after a decade.

As the small breweries closed, the entryways beneath them were forgotten. During the Great Depression, other buildings were demolished, and their remains were bulldozed into the caves.

Nearly 2,400 feet of cave still exists beneath the Lemp Brewery, though it's not easy to find, even for a veteran like Sam. On this night, its entry is elusive within the labyrinthine spread of basements and storage vaults. The group wanders for a half-hour. "I've been down here so many times," he says. "You get drunk and then tell people about it. It's a nice little ego boost to tell people about it. But every time I come down here, it's like I've never been here before. You get lost."

Finally, a room gives way to a hall and the sound of trickling water can be heard in the distance. "Your face just feels really good when you get down there," explains Chris.

The atmosphere changes as the hallway opens onto a cavernous passageway, twenty feet wide and twelve feet high. Little tubular stalactites hang from the ceiling. The group has entered bona fide Scooby-Doo territory, and for the next couple of hours, they wander. The caves have been thoroughly scoured, but the limestone walls, hardened pathways and pools of spring water remain unchanged.

"We haven't had major problems with the caves," says Shashi Palamand, who owns the Lemp Brewery complex with his father, Rao, and used to own the Route 66 Brewery in Union Station.

"Clearly, we limit access to them," Palamand adds. "The entrances within the buildings are secured." He concedes, however, that for a certain type of individual the draw may be too great to resist, and all he can do is make sure that the cavers can't get in. "We can't block up every hole in the system," he says, "but it's important to say that the people who do get down there are risking themselves."

Casey and Chris stress restraint when talking about the Lemp, as they don't want it ruined by novices. "I want people to see it, but the right kind of person," says Casey. "We're explorers, not vandals."

Brian and Rob had scoped out the Cass Avenue tunnel for a few months before they figured out a plan. "Before we ever came down here, we saw it from up top, and we figured we'd rappel in," Brian explains. "But we were a little worried once we rappelled in that someone would throw our rope down and that would be that."

The two of them are following train tracks just north of downtown, walking into a huge hole into which you can literally drive a train. The tunnel appears lived-in, with a sofa and chair arranged into a makeshift living room, and a concrete door frame along the eastern wall covered with a blanket. Miscellaneous objects are scattered: a plastic bag filled with miniature dolls, a recipe card, and the Star Trek novel Pawns and Symbols.

A graffiti artist named GUER has tagged in the farthest reaches of the tunnel. "I want to meet that guy," Rob says admiringly. "He tags everything. Anywhere I go, there he is."

Trudging through ankle-deep mud, Rob comes across a small, boarded-up room where a friend of his used to live. "There were a couple pipes that kept it warm year-round," explains Rob. "He came here about ten years later, and his bottles of Thunderbird and his old leather jacket were still here, and his mattress and his titty mags were still here."

Brian points at a strand of unprotected fiber-optic cable about the width of a telephone pole that snakes out of a hole. "We're looking at about 300 gigabits-per-second fiber here," says Brian. A man with a chainsaw could unwire all of downtown and be gone before system administrators knew what hit them.

"Think of the havoc," says Rob.

There aren't any warnings or "Keep Out" signs — this far removed from the surface, they seem unnecessary. But even if a sign was there, says Casey, it's no big deal. "So many people are turned away from the signs that say, 'Authorized Personnel Only.' We just assume that we're not authorized. But who does this authorization?

"Ninjalicious said: 'From here on out, I hereby authorize everyone to go into every doorway they choose to go into. You can tell them that I authorized you.'"

An equally effective strategy, says Casey, is to feign ignorance. "Playing stupid is sometimes your best ally: 'I'm sorry. I thought I was authorized.'"

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