Couple See Profitability in Old Network : Entrepreneurs: Two cattle brokers are betting on tourism potential of 40 miles of West Virginia cave.
Jane Morgan bends at the knees and waist, shuffling through a dark passageway about 4 feet high. Suddenly, she stands and shines her flashlight into a depression in the rock ceiling.
It’s about 15 feet long, humped in the middle, slightly rounded.
“This is where Thomas Jefferson found the three-toed sloth. There’s the head and there’s the tail,” she says.
In 1791, she says, Jefferson found the prehistoric skeleton here in Organ Cave and had its bones removed to Monticello, his Virginia estate.
Morgan then launches into a recitation of all the other creatures that have made the southern West Virginia caverns their home over the centuries, including two endangered species of bats that still dwell within.
“It’s so interesting,” she said. “Every time I come in here, I find something new.”
To Morgan and her husband, Sam, Organ Cave is a historical and geological treasure--and a fledgling business. To their skeptical bankers, it’s merely “a hole in the ground.”
The Morgans bought the Greenbrier County cave on a whim last fall during an auction to settle the estate of the previous owner.
The network of caves, stretching at least 40 miles, is a National Natural Landmark that held encampments of Confederate soldiers between 1861 and 1865. The 200-by-96-foot wide “chapel room” near the main entrance housed religious services for 1,100 men, many of whom worked mining saltpeter to make gunpowder.
The Morgans went to the auction as observers but left as new owners of the cave with a winning bid of $253,000.
“When you’re in the cattle business for 30 years, you’ve got to gamble,” he said. “You buy and sell on impulse. That’s what we did.”
The Morgans had been inside the cave only once before buying it. After the auction, they walked the property lines, imagining the possibilities.
As cattle farmers, they saw the perfect above-ground spot for a rodeo. Their son Troy, 29, a bull rider in Gastonia, N.C., helped stage the first one last fall. It drew 1,300 people. A dozen more were scheduled for the spring and summer.
The Morgans envisioned a log-cabin snack bar and gift shop, along with new walkways, guardrails and lights in the cave. They would hire guides to lead 90-minute tours for $10 per person and four- to six-hour “wild cave” adventures for $80 per person. “Everything just came to us,” Jane Morgan said.
But there was a problem: money.
The couple had borrowed against their business and needed a loan.
“The banks were skeptical, to say the least,” she said. “All manner of people were making fun of us. . . . They’d say, ‘Why do you want that hole in the ground?’ ”
The former owners kept no record of the number of visitors, so the Morgans were hard pressed to project a profit margin. They developed a business plan based on successful caves in Pennsylvania and Virginia and sent more than 20 copies to every branch of state government that might help.
Greenbrier National Bank provided a small loan after its board was assured that other investors would buy the cave if the Morgans defaulted.
Organ Cave contains 37 saltpeter vats from the Civil War and five from the War of 1812, all preserved in a state of suspended operation. The saltpeter work stopped abruptly when Union troops discovered the cave and captured the rebel soldiers.
The cave itself was formed by the Mississippian Sea about 500 million years ago. Fossilized sponges and other marine creatures dot the limestone ceilings of its passageways.
As they sought more money, the Morgans invited state and federal lawmakers to visit. “There was a total lack of support from state government,” Jane Morgan said.
Eventually, the Morgans offered part of their farm as collateral and got another loan. They now have eight employees and more than $600,000 to repay over 20 years.
But the business is off the ground: From April 1 through Dec. 31, there were 7,000 visitors. The Web site, https://www.organcave.com, has drawn hundreds of requests for brochures.
“Our vision is to make it a family-oriented place to come. Kids are bored stiff around here,” Jane Morgan said. “We want local people to have so much pride in what we’re doing here. We want them to say to people who are here visiting, ‘You cannot go back until you see this.’ ”
