Jim White
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico
Any human being in Jim White’s place would have felt as he did when his first three guests—the two young men and Ray V. Davis, the photographer they brought back from Carlsbad—started that stroll down the ageless corridors! Hearing their gasps of appreciation was to Jim White an accolade! Seeing their eyes was to find his belated, yearned-after justification. Listening to them as they tried and failed to express what they felt showed Jim White that at least three other men in the world felt about the caverns somewhat as he did. He must even have enjoyed hearing photographer Davis complain because there was no more film, for Davis had used all of his two-dozen plates within the first enthusiastic mile!
When the twenty-four pictures were developed and prints came before the eyes of former doubters in town, Jim White was besieged by those who wanted to take the trip through the cave. Red Wheeler and Harry Stephens persuaded Jim to organize an excursion party for the tour, and so it was that another “original thirteen” came to be recorded in the centuries old history of Carlsbad Caverns. Wheeler and Stephens were two, photographer Davis made three. The others in the original party were Luther Perry, E. H. Weaver, Dan Lowenbrook, Homer Grabb, Coly Jones, J. R. Yates, J. B. Morris, John Nevenger, J. R. Owen and C. P. Pardue, all of Carlsbad. Superstition was relieved by the fourteenth member of the party—Jim White, now Guide!
In those days, it was an all-day trip across the thirty miles of prairie and mountain to the mouth of the cave. The party reached Jim’s shack late in the afternoon, ate the supper Mrs. White had waiting, then bunked early to rest for the all-day trek scheduled for daybreak. The first sightseers were lowered by two’s … Jim White at the winch … his passengers in the bucket used by the guano company to get down into the Bat Cave. Down they went into the black shaft which was the doorway to beauty.
It never occurred to Jim White that he should charge admission to the cave, and when the party started back to town he refused to set a price. The guests insisted on paying something, if only for the food, for Mrs. White’s trouble in feeding and housing them, and Jim’s own trouble both in the shack and in the caverns. The discussion ended with each guest paying a dollar. The thirteen dollars Jim used to buy more materials—to carry his trail even deeper into the cave.
A few days later on the streets of Carlsbad, Jim was greeted by one of his “original thirteen” sightseers. “Jim, that cave of yours is the greatest sight of its kind you or I or anyone else ever saw. You should charge everybody you take through it, five dollars! Man, it’s worth it!”
Meantime, the thirteen had passed along the word until it seemed that everyone was begging to be taken through the cave. Jim was at last obliged to fix a price of two dollars, since visitors to the then isolated spot had to be fed, and as the numbers increased, bunkhouses had to be built. As a moneymaker, Jim White’s Cave was not a success in those early days, since equipment and accommodations outran the income, even at two dollars per person for the guided tours. Then there were the days when Jim would greet some poor old farmer with a wife and bunch of kids. The family would want to take the trip through the Cavern, now beginning to achieve local fame, but who obviously could not afford that two-dollars-each admission price. Since it would seem unfair to admit them without charge while making others pay, Jim White would simply declare that day as “A Free Day”.
Jim White, the Guide, had the pleasure of taking the very poor and the very rich through the fairyland beneath the New Mexico desert. Jim White had fought for it so long he had become sentimental about the great Caverns.
In time people throughout the world learned of the fantastic beauty of the Caverns, and good roads became the pathways for awe-stricken thousands who arrived to gaze at what no man could explain completely—miraculous caverns that defy mankind’s vocabulary to describe.
By 1922 the scenic and scientific values of the caverns were of local and gradually expanding importance. Newspaper men and writers would always receive complimentary tours from Jim White, who realized that printed stories, in whatever publications, would have untold advertising value. The crowd read of the Caverns at Carlsbad—they heard of them from friends—and they gathered in increasing numbers to be lowered in the old guano-bucket. Jim White lifted nervous spinsters across narrow ledges, and pulled fat ladies up steep inclines. When his parties reached particularly dangerous spots, Jim’s body was always in a position to shield their eyes from the perils, so no one would become frightened, and make a misstep. In spite of the rickety and exciting descent in the old bucket, and the inadequacy of the trails, there was never an accident … never so much as a broken arm or leg. There were some hairbreadth escapes, with Jim White’s firm hand grasping someone by the seat of the pants to prevent a sudden plunge into a pit.
News of the wonderful cave out on the desert southwest of Carlsbad finally reached Washington and the authorities decided to check up on it. In April, 1923, the General Land Office in Washington sent Mr. Robert Holley, a mineral examiner to make a survey. Jim keenly felt Mr. Holley’s original scepticism when the newcomer said: “We didn’t feel as though this cave was of much importance, but the Department thought I’d better run down and measure it, so they could know if it is big enough for them to consider”. Jim grinned and said little. The next morning Jim White lowered Mr. Holley and his instruments into the cavern for the first time. It took the government man over a month to finish his very complete and accurate work and report. Scepticism turned to enthusiasm, as is witnessed by the opening paragraph of his survey-report in which Mr. Holley stated:
“I enter upon the task of compiling this report with a feeling of temerity, as I am wholly conscious of the feebleness of my efforts to convey in words the deep conflicting emotions, the feeling of fear and awe, and a desire for an inspired understanding of the Divine Creator’s work which presents to the human eye such a complex aggregate of natural wonders in such a space”. In concluding, Mr. Holley said: “… it appears that this cave is of such wonderful character as to be worthy to be established as a national monument....”.