Perhaps the most distinctive feature of White Rock is the small cave that adorns its western face. The cave is often called Ketner's Cave, in honor of the early trapper or trader who first left his name nearby in 1731.
The earliest written description of Ketner's Cave came from the hand of Calvin Perry Clark, a young gold seeker of 1859. Calvin had come to the gold fields with his father and several friends and relatives. After a fruitless search in the environs of Denver City, the party followed the base of the mountains south to Pikes Peak. Enroute Calvin had been fascinated by the many rock formations that lined Monument Creek. When he reached the trail up Ute Pass, Calvin could contain himself no longer, and rushed off to see the giant monoliths in the Garden of the Gods:
"I started off in a rain storm which wet me to the skin to see some verry curios looking stone that looked some thing like a brick kiln in color but of singular shape and after passing some curious stunted trees of I do not know what over into a deep valley, I cam to a snow white rock perhaps 300 f long and 40 thick. here I found numerous names cut, and cut my own, and from a peace of this that was taken along I found that it was the finest artical of plaster Parris. when broken open it is streaked with a pretty coral red. here I came near breaking my neck climing a pole to look in a cavern that was about 15f above the ground and was about 12 by 20f in side and l7 high, with about 1 1/2 f of ashes in the bottom where some animil had been burnt out. the mouth of this was some 4 by 6f."The name of Calvin Perry Clark can no longer be seen anywhere on White Rock. There are some initials "C.P." but the name beneath is illegible. It was raining at the time of Clark's visit, and he was perhaps so hurried that he did not take the time to carve the letters of his last name very deeply into the rock. But several of the names he found surrounding Ketner's Cave back in 1859 can still be seen today:
C.E. Palmer - a member of the Grey Eagle Company of five who left St. Louis for the Pikes Peak goldfieds in mid-October of 1858. The five reached Kansas City aboard the steamship E.A. Ogden on 18 October, and then left for the goldfields by way of the Santa Fe Trail. Their passing was noted by a reporter for the Kansas City Journal of Commerce, 19 October 1858: "These young men are all mechanics, and go out to the mines prepared to make money at the forge and anvil, with square and compass, as well as at digging."
W.H. Conner - a 26-year-old gold seeker from Kentucky, who prospected South Clear Creek west of Denver City.
A. Kendall - a 28-year-old miner from Maryland, who drifted down into South Park in late July of 1860. There he shared a dwelling with three other miners.
J.G. Yutsey and J.E. Crantham - early miners at Russell's Gulch in the mountains west of Denver City. They were among the 891 men working the gulch in late September of 1859. The gold yield at that time was $35,000 per week, or $39 to the man.
A.H. Jones 1869, St. Louis, Mo. - This name is high above and to the left of Ketner's Cave on the west face of White Rock. It was engraved there by Albert H. Jones, born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1839. At the outbreak of the Civil War Albert joined the Haskins' Zouaves, Company B, Ninth New York Infantry. Shortly before the close of the war he was transferred to a gunboat and was so badly crushed by a falling mast that he was honorably discharged from the service with the rank of corporal.
Jones came west almost as soon as he had recovered from his wounds. He arrived in Denver in 1866. His first business was a wholesale liquor store, which he opened on 16th and Market Streets.
In 1876 Jones married and had a son, also named Albert. Two years later he organized the Chaffee Light Artillery Company. For a time he served as captain of the governor's guard, and for nearly fifteen years acted as brigadier general and inspector general of the Colorado National Guard.
In 1890 General Jones was appointed U.S. Marshall for Colorado. After retiring from that office, he pursued mining interests until his death in 1910.
A.B. and Dora Sanford - These two names are engraved high above and to the right of Ketner's Cave. They belonged to a brother-sister tandem, Albert Byron and Dora Belle Sanford. They were the children of Colorado pioneers, Byron and Mollie Sanford, whose story is told in Mollie's goldrush diary, later published in book form under the title Mollie. The elder Sanfords had come west as newlyweds in the spring of 1860. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Byron joined the First Colorado Volunteers, and later fought in the battle of Pigeon's Ranch. Just before his return from New Mexico, Mollie gave birth to a son named Albert. Little Albert was born on 22 September 1862, the same day Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. Mollie nicknamed her new son Bertie. "He has dark hair and larg, wondering hazel eyes," she wrote, "and he 'coos' and 'crows' already. A regular little captain, already giving his orders, with no intention of having them disregarded."
Albert grew up to study mining engineering at the University of Denver. It was in 1880, the same year he began his studies, that the 18-year-old carved his name in the Garden of the Gods. After graduation, Albert opened an assay office in Denver, and for twenty years was an assayer and mine examiner. In later years he found time to expand on his love for history by writing several articles for the Colorado Magazine and by serving as assistant curator for the Colorado State Historical Society.
Just down and to the left of the A.B. Sanford name is the name of his sister, Dora. This was Endora Isabell Sanford - three years younger than her brother - and described by her mother as "a dimpled, blue-eyed, brown-haired darling." Dora was fifteen when she carved her name in the Garden of the Gods. She grew up to marry a major in the Colorado National Guard. It was to Dora's son that Mollie willed her diary, and it was this same son who later saw to its publication.
SOURCES:
1- Mollie, introduced by Donald F. Danker. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959.
2- Two Diaries, introduced by Malcolm G. Wyer. Denver Public Library, 1962.
3- A.H. Jones Obituary, The Trail, Vol.3, November 1910.
4- 1860 Census of Arapahoe County, Kansas.
5- Report of Henry Allen and C.A. Roberts in the Rocky Mountain News, 29 September 1859.