In the 1970s, when I attended high school, it was common for weekend parties to include underage drinking, mostly kegs of beer. Parties thrown by students within the school were talked up and embellished by invited kids and others who planned to show up. Hype about a party might be about its unusual location, and most tended to be outdoors. The hype, like a lot of other things in high school, was usually better than the party itself. 

Information about parties circulated through the student body around mid-week; this, of course, was before cell phones and texts. Word of mouth, written notes, and landlines were the communication network of the day. By Friday, the buzz reached a crescendo as kids desperate for weekend plans imagined themselves among the revelers.

It was interesting to see kids converge onto a party site from every direction and with every form of transportation. At our school, there were two main categories for a kid to belong to, Jocks and Freaks. Of course many kids didn’t fit in either category, and a few kids skirted the line of acceptance within both groups.

There were a couple of memorable parties with unique locations, one involving a farm where kids bused out of the city had tons of acreage, live music, and the freedom to drink without the chance of driving under the influence. Another one involved an old abandoned mansion on the hills above the Guthrie Theatre overlooking downtown Minneapolis.

There is one location though I will always remember as being truly unique. Part of its mystique was the fact that so few people had ever visited. Kids had heard rumors about the place, but few had been inside. One reason was pure logistics. Our high school located in Southwest Minneapolis was miles from the location, and a carload of teenagers bombing down well-traveled highways, with a trunk full of party supplies and fogged-up windows, was a sure way to attract the wrong attention.

Part drinking location, part exploratory adventure, and part horror show, “The Caves,” were a destination for kids looking for something out of the ordinary. Built-in the early 1800s, the tunnels reportedly run for miles inside sandstone bluffs on the Mississippi near St. Paul. Originally the caverns were mined for sand to make glass, and in the ensuing century and a half, multiple enterprises utilized the tunnels, including a businessman who built a speakeasy in the 30s that became a favorite haunt for gangsters. 

Most of the network of tunnels fell into disuse after World War II, and the city worked hard to keep entrances sealed, and young explorers out of harms way. The task of keeping people out proved to be daunting because of the soft sandstone, the same reason why they built the caverns in the first place. The soft rock can easily be carved out around any erected barrier. The tunnels became an attractive nuisance because of the mystery surrounding them.

My older brother and a couple of his friends from our neighborhood were the only people I knew who had ever been inside, and they knew of a secret route to gain access.

One Friday night, an excursion to the site was suggested on the spur of the moment and then turned into a reality when everybody agreed that it was a good idea.. A few people had been hanging out at our house, and as is often the case, decisions in the teenage world are made based on a challenge rather than rational logic.

It was readily apparent as we embarked on the journey why the caves as a party location would never appeal to the masses. The logistics of accessing the caves, hauling flashlights, and needed paraphernalia for a party was not an easy task. Once onsite, the first obstacle was to squeeze through a re bar opening at the exit of a storm sewer that flowed directly into the Mississippi. The water running through the storm sewer was only an inch or so deep on that night and flowed mostly down the center of the concave sewer floor. Once inside, it was approximately one city block back from the river to the opening. Someone who knew the location of the caves, broke a hole through the concrete ceiling, and through that hole, our group was able to access the inside of the caves.

It was an amazing thing to shimmy through the hole, stand up, and realize you were in a cavern with 20 to 30-foot arched ceilings and enough width between the walls to drive a dump truck through. The darkness within the caves was absolute, and with flashlights turned off, the blackness was impenetrable. There was no such thing as waiting for your eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. There were dozens of tunnels running off of the main artery, and each was as wide and tall as the main. The tunnels all dead-ended into solid sandstone walls where previous visitors had carved out hand and footholds, allowing a person to climb to the ceiling.

Our adventure that night ended safely, but it was not too long after our visit, that we heard on the news about authorities finding an unidentified dead person within the network of tunnels. While writing this story, I searched the internet to find if anything had changed in the last 45 years, and was saddened to see five additional young lives claimed by the caves over the years. From reading the stories about people who have explored the caves, it is apparent one thing has remained the same. Young people are still looking for the same adventures we sought all those years ago.