Hipples Cave

John Bush was raised in Martinsburg and graduated from Central High in 1961. He spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest. He has many memories as a boy in the 1950s that give some insight to the people and culture of Martinsburg in the 1950s. John likes to tell stories and over the years he has repeated the stories of his youth many times. His belief is that those years in Martinsburg influenced him all of his life. Some of the stories are historical in nature, some are colorful, and some are personal. He wishes that you enjoy them.

The location of Hipples Cave near Waterside has been known since the late 1700s. The rumor was that a man named Hipple found it when he was following a bear and it disappeared into the rocks. My uncle, Clyde Claycomb, told me that as a kid he went through the cave a couple of times. And my grandmom, Abi Claycomb, told me that the family went there for picnics in the 1920s and 1930s. The cave is located about three miles from Claycomb’s stone house on Potter Creek. If you look it up on the internet, you will find out that Hipples Cave was open as a very popular commercial operation from 1923 to 1940. It had several picnic tables and a pavilion, and food was sold there on certain days of the week.

No one recalls who had the bright idea that we should explore the cave without permission, but a few of my classmates and I went there one Sunday afternoon somewhere in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s. Most of the guys were my classmates from Cove High, but Gary “Digger” Thompson from Roaring Spring was along and remembers the event very well. I still call him “Digger” and he calls me “Wack,” nicknames from our high school days. There were two carloads of guys and I think they included Harry Brubaker, Glenn Drake, Jim Moose, Robert Turner and Steve Dilling. Glenn died in Vietnam and Jim died as a young man in his forties. Our stories about the event vary but there is some agreement.

We must have planned for the exploration in advance because everyone had at least one flashlight. In addition, I had a box of candles and matches as backup. My mom had a thing about always having extra candles but not for cave exploring. She always said they could be used for a lot of things and you should always travel with at least one candle. Many years later, as I drove or flew home across the country, she always asked if I had a candle with me.

There was a concrete staircase leading down into the cave and the entrance had a door, but it was not locked, so we all headed into the cave. There was a dirt pathway, a bit wet, but it was easy to follow because it had been well traveled. Along the path were old wires and light sockets, so it was easy to know which path to take. The cave was narrow and about 1,200 feet in length; it only made a couple of changes in direction. There were a couple of large rooms that had stalagmites on the floor and stalactites hanging from the ceiling. A small creek flowed along the path. At one location, there were lots of names carved into a wall of soft limestone. There were my Uncle Clyde’s initials, C.D.C., and a date, 1936, that were very neatly carved into the rock. His initials stood out from the rest. It was rumored that he carved his initials wherever he went when he was a boy. He likely was ten at the time, as he didn’t turn eleven until late December of 1936.

Later, when I was in college, I learned how to read and use geologic maps and I also read about the origin of caves and limestone caverns. Hipples Cave follows the strike (direction) and the dip (slope) of the rock beds. The presence of an underground stream indicated that part of the cave’s origin was related to erosion. The large rooms with stalagmites and stalactites indicated that much of the cave probably was formed by solution of the limestone over a long period of time.

It did not take long to walk to the end of the cave. At the end of the trail, we could see light where the stream exited the cave. After a short discussion, some of the boys turned around to head back and some of us decided to go out the exit. You had to get down on your back in the stream and crawl to get out and then you had to circle around a hill to get to the cars. Steve Dilling went out first, followed by a couple others. I went out last, but the others had already headed back, and it turned out that the exit was near the backyard of a home where there were several people at some sort of family gathering. A man came toward me yelling at the top of his lungs. Boy, did I get chewed out. I stood there and took the onslaught without talking back. I said there were no signs and the door was open. He told me to leave before he called the police. Digger still remembers me telling everyone about getting chewed out, and we quickly got out of there.

It may not have been right, but in those days if land wasn’t posted it was considered to be open to everyone. I was not daunted by the bad experience and went on to explore caves in Blair County and, while in college, caves in Tennessee, Georgia and Ohio. While attending college in Tennessee, my geology teacher took us, as a group, into a couple of caves. Only the leaders had hardhats and none of us had any other gear. The only safety thing that I remember is that we were told to each bring a flashlight with extra batteries or a couple of candles. Maybe my mom had to carry a candle when her family visited Hipples Cave in the 1930s and she never forgot that lesson.