On one of the first lovely days of Spring 2022, twenty-one Minnesota Dames and guests toured the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul. We enjoyed hearing about the history of the caves, including their beginnings when the soft sandstone was mined for silica to make window glass, through their years as a mushroom farm and bleu cheese cultivation, and of course the Prohibition speakeasy that catered to notorious gangsters such as John Dillinger and Alvin “Creepy” Carpis.
Following the tour, we traveled just one mile to lunch at Holman’s Table overlooking the St. Paul Municipal Airport. It was a lovely gathering, and we are grateful to Sandy Hull for arranging the activities!
Once Prohibition ended, a legal nightclub, the Castle Royal, was located in the caves.
Many of the ornate furnishings were salvaged from a Minneapolis mansion being torn down. Here, our organizer Sandy Hull poses by the fountain.
The Fireplace Room is rumored to be the site of a shootout over a card game gone bad. Bullet holes can still be seen on the fireplace mantel, top right, and a "tracer" of a bullet's trajectory can be seen leading up to the bullet holes.
Our group moved from the finished, heated speakeasy and nightclub cave to the more natural unheated area, where the 50-degree temperature matched the temperature outside.
Once the silica mining operations ceased, the caves were used to grow mushrooms and later to culture bleu cheese in rooms such as these.
The former owners of the mushroom farming operation developed a pickled mushroom recipe still in use today, though the Lehmann family has sold the operation.
Our tour guide told us to be on the lookout for phantom images in our photos. There are rumored to be ghosts in the caves.
Photos required the extra light from cellphones!
Only five of the seven caves are on the tour. This passageway leads to an unrestored area pictured in the old photograph, where one of the original entrances to the speakeasy was located.
Lunch at Holman's Table followed the tour, and allowed Dames to catch up.
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