There's a Sealed Cave Under This St. Louis Mansion. A Highway Buried Its Entrance: DeMenil Mansion

Under a white-columned mansion on the south side of St. Louis runs a cave the city sealed in 1964 for Interstate 55. More than four miles of it are still down there. In 1849 the Oregon Trail guide Henri Chatillon built four brick rooms on a bluff over the Mississippi. A French doctor married into the Chouteau family turned them into the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion, and leased part of the cave beneath it to the Lemp brewery for lagering beer. In 1945 a pharmaceutical maker named Lee Hess bought the house for the hole under it. His crews found an Ice Age bone bed, the paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson came from New York, and in 1950 Cherokee Cave opened to the public, with a Peccary Cemetery, a Dragon's Den and a palace from the 1904 World's Fair. Then the highway came. One half of this property was saved. The other half was blown shut in the same year. This is the story of why, and of the secret door the neighborhood still talks about. Part of a series on the mansion districts of St. Louis: Vandeventer Place, Portland and Westmoreland Place, St. Louis Place, Lafayette Square, Lucas Place and the Campbell House, the brick thieves of the north side, and now the DeMenil Mansion and Cherokee Cave. Sources are listed at the bottom. Where they disagree or rest on a single account, the video says so. CHAPTERS 0:00 The last tour of Cherokee Cave 1:01 Four miles still underground 1:29 Two halves of one property 2:18 Henri Chatillon, the Oregon Trail guide 4:06 A widow's land on the bluff 5:21 The doctor who married a Chouteau 6:51 Columns facing the river 8:15 What was under the lawn 9:11 Why beer needed a cave 11:09 The doctor in the beer business 12:01 The cave nobody needed 13:08 The historian upstairs 14:51 The man who wanted the hole 15:46 A skull with tusks 18:30 Cherokee Cave opens 20:17 The line on the highway map 21:48 The house people could see 22:47 The cave nobody saved 23:46 The secret door 25:40 What is left today 27:25 Where the bones went SOURCES Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion — Mansion History; Cherokee Cave; the Chatillon family; Dr. Nicolas DeMenil; Alexander DeMenil (demenil.org) City of St. Louis — Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion, City Landmark #5 Simpson, G. G. and Whitaker, G. O. — "A fossil deposit in a cave in St. Louis," American Museum Novitates no. 1408 (1949) St. Louis Magazine — "How did hundreds of peccaries get into Cherokee Cave?"; "Can You Still Get Into Cherokee Cave?"; "What was Lemp's Cave really like?" HistoryNet — "Henri Chatillon's Heart of Lightness" Herman Melville — "Mr. Parkman's Tour" (review, 1849) Francis Parkman — The Oregon Trail (1849) Cherokee Cave historical marker (HMdb) STL City 2000 — Cherokee Cave; Unseen St. Louis — "St. Louis caves and the breweries that loved them" Showcaves.com — Cherokee Cave St. Louis Patina — Cherokee Cave at the Saint Louis Science Center Riverfront Times — "The Chatillon-DeMenil House Needs Your Help" Wikipedia — "Chatillon–DeMenil House"; "Lemp Brewery"; "Carondelet, St. Louis" #StLouisHistory #CherokeeCave #StLouisCaves #DeMenilMansion #LostMansions