Information Sheet

 

 

R         White River-Ozark Land and Development Company.  Onyx Cave

743         Park (Pulaski County, Mo.).

                        Ledger, 1929.

                                    One volume.

 

 

 

This is a ledger of expenditures and receipts at Onyx Cave Park on the Gasconade River in Pulaski County, Missouri, May—August 1929.  Operated by the White River-Ozark Land and Development Company, the park was under local supervision of Henry Humphrey.  Included with the ledger is a letter to Humphrey by Clifford E. Lewis, secretary-treasurer of the company.

 

Onyx Cave is a large cavern near Boiling Spring along the Gasconade River.  The cave had been home to prehistoric peoples, was the site of early gunpowder manufacturing activities before the Civil War, and was the location of commercial onyx mining in the late nineteenth century.  During the twentieth century, the cave has been part of various recreational and resort properties.  As Onyx Mountain Cavern, it is currently (2001) operated as a commercial attraction.

 

The ledger book from Onyx Cave Park consists of only six pages, with entries from 16 May 1929 through 4 August 1929.  It includes notations of expenditures for groceries, ice, and hard­ware, and receipts from rentals of cottages and boats, and sales of soda, ice, and miscellaneous items.  At the end of July 1929, the park showed a profit of only $15.48, which may be an indica­tion why the entries cease in August.

 

With the ledger is a letter, 6 May 1929, from Clifford E. Lewis, Secretary-Treasurer of the White River-Ozark Land and Development Company, to Henry Humphrey, the on-site manager of Onyx Cave Park.  Lewis forwarded fifty dollars to Humphrey for supplies, and included basic in­structions for operating the park.

 

 

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