Strange how much a man’s vision and energy can drive him to achieve! Strange, too, that Jim White’s consuming purpose was to lure an apparently disinterested world to see what he had seen—perhaps in order to justify his years of insistence that the place did exist somewhere beyond his own imagination. The world simply had to see this magnificent spectacle into which he had first crawled.
Working in the cave those countless hours and continuing to explore until he had visited most of the present known areas, Jim White felt his awesome appreciation translated into something akin to love. He wanted to display it proudly to other approving, comprehending eyes—and watch them light with awe and wonder. Jim was an unlettered man, as were most of his associates, and no written record of his findings was made.
At last two young men, crossing the country in an old jalopy pulled up at the cave and asked Jim if there was a chance to see it! Chance? Jim White would be delighted to show them through, he explained. One of them had a kodak. When the young fellow asked about flashlight powder, Jim told him about his effort to get a photographer to record a picture-story of the cave. At Jim’s suggestion that flashlight powder might be found in Carlsbad, the youths started back to town, offering to see if they could find a photographer who would make the trip, taking for his pay the right to distribute pictures. An early-morning start into the cave the next day was planned by Jim White and the first two persons from the outside world who ever expressed a desire to see into the underground palaces!
Any human being in Jim White’s place would have felt as he did when his first three guests—the two young men and Ray V. Davis, the photographer they brought back from Carlsbad—started that stroll down the ageless corridors! Hearing their gasps of appreciation was to Jim White an accolade! Seeing their eyes was to find his belated, yearned-after justification. Listening to them as they tried and failed to express what they felt showed Jim White that at least three other men in the world felt about the caverns somewhat as he did. He must even have enjoyed hearing photographer Davis complain because there was no more film, for Davis had used all of his two-dozen plates within the first enthusiastic mile!
When the twenty-four pictures were developed and prints came before the eyes of former doubters in town, Jim White was besieged by those who wanted to take the trip through the cave. Red Wheeler and Harry Stephens persuaded Jim to organize an excursion party for the tour, and so it was that another “original thirteen” came to be recorded in the centuries old history of Carlsbad Caverns. Wheeler and Stephens were two, photographer Davis made three. The others in the original party were Luther Perry, E. H. Weaver, Dan Lowenbrook, Homer Grabb, Coly Jones, J. R. Yates, J. B. Morris, John Nevenger, J. R. Owen and C. P. Pardue, all of Carlsbad. Superstition was relieved by the fourteenth member of the party—Jim White, now Guide!
In those days, it was an all-day trip across the thirty miles of prairie and mountain to the mouth of the cave. The party reached Jim’s shack late in the afternoon, ate the supper Mrs. White had waiting, then bunked early to rest for the all-day trek scheduled for daybreak. The first sightseers were lowered by two’s ... Jim White at the winch ... his passengers in the bucket used by the guano company to get down into the Bat Cave. Down they went into the black shaft which was the doorway to beauty.
Passageway in the Hall of Giants
It never occurred to Jim White that he should charge admission to the cave, and when the party started back to town he refused to set a price. The guests insisted on paying something, if only for the food, for Mrs. White’s trouble in feeding and housing them, and Jim’s own trouble both in the shack and in the caverns. The discussion ended with each guest paying a dollar. The thirteen dollars Jim used to buy more materials—to carry his trail even deeper into the cave.
A few days later on the streets of Carlsbad, Jim was greeted by one of his “original thirteen” sightseers. “Jim, that cave of yours is the greatest sight of its kind you or I or anyone else ever saw. You should charge everybody you take through it, five dollars! Man, it’s worth it!”