Shot in the Dark: A Colorado Cave Thriller

BY RICHARD RHINEHART

The rugged nature of Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon east of Glenwood Springs makes exploration of the high Leadville Limestone cliffs difficult for those interested in discovering caves, or for those who are simply exploring the canyon’s steep walls for adventure.

About six miles to the east of the city, along the canyon’s isolated southern rim, is the 6,283-foot-long Hubbard Cave. One of Colorado’s most extensive caves, Hubbard was discovered in 1892 during a prospecting trip by 46-year-old Spring Valley resident William Henry Hubbard and his 53-year-old brother-in-law, Griffith Jones. Hubbard moved with his brothers to Glenwood in July 1886 from Vermont after hearing about the silver at Aspen. Though prospecting was an interesting pastime, William worked as a professional hunting guide and was in much demand by easterners traveling to the Roaring Fork Valley for hunting excursions.

In early November of 1891, Hubbard was retained to guide a group of eastern men on a hunting trip into the Thompson Creek region, southwest of Carbondale.

Spending the chilly autumn night in the relative warmth of a hunting cabin, Hubbard and his colleagues were abruptly woken in the darkness by the sounds of an animal entering the building. With no time to light candles or the lantern, Hubbard called out a warning to the intruder, which he feared was a bear intent on doing them harm. He received only grunts in return, so the guide steadied his Colt 45 revolver and fired.

Tragically, his single shot hit its mark. A scream pierced the darkness, then the sound of something falling to the floor. The men quickly lit their lantern. They were astonished to find Gurdon W. Price, a wealthy client from Chicago, dying on the wooden floorboards from a wound to his head.

With medical help hours away, all the men could do was comfort their dying colleague, who passed away before dawn. In the early gray light of morning, the men carefully wrapped their deceased colleague in blankets, loaded their horses, and started their long, sad ride down to Carbondale.

It turned out Gurdon was known for walking in his sleep, and the men decided he had probably half-awaken to go outside the cabin to relieve himself. Fumbling in the dark as he made his way back into the cabin, he was unable to respond intelligently when Hubbard called out his warning. He paid for his grunts with his life.

Price was the 27-year-old son of Dr. Vincent C. Price, a well-known baking powder manufacturer in Chicago. His powder, an innovative cream of tartar product, was critical to the safe manufacture of food. Its marketing in the late 19^th century built a substantial family fortune.

The honorary doctor bore no animosity to Hubbard for the accidental shooting of his son in the wilderness of Colorado’s high mountains. Following the burial ceremony in Chicago, Dr. Price wrote Hubbard a personal letter stating his sorrow at the unexpected turn of events. He insisted Hubbard should hold no blame for the tragic event.

Gurdon, an assistant to his father in business and a member of Chicago’s elite Washington Park Club, left behind a wife and five young children. His youngest brother, Vincent Leonard Price, stepped up in his business duties as the result of his brother’s unexpected passing, and later served as president of his father’s National Candy Company. Losing much of his fortune as a result of the Panic of 1893, the father and his four surviving children remained owner of what would become the nation’s most popular manufacturer of fine candies, including jellybeans, jawbreakers and popular chocolate Bobcat Bar.

The younger Vincent’s son, also named Vincent, was born in 1911. He grew to become a cook and serious lover of foods, as well as a writer and art historian. In London to study for a master’s degree in art, the Yale graduate was drawn to the theater and became a member of Orson Welles’s famed Mercury Theatre. By 1944, Vincent found regular roles in Hollywood films as a character actor. His credits included a variety of theatrical productions, though he best was known for his work in horror films, such as “House on Haunted Hill,” “The Tingler,” “The Fly,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Later generations knew him from his narration to pop singer Michael Jackson’s huge 1982 hit, “Thriller.”

We have no idea how the accidental death of his uncle 20 years prior to his birth, or the sudden loss of much of the family fortune in 1893, may have affected the life of the young actor. Both events probably played some role in his business decisions and selection of roles.

As to Hubbard’s cave on the rim of Glenwood Canyon, high above the Colorado Central Power Company’s Shoshone Power Plant, the hunting guide began running occasional guided horseback tours to the isolated cavern in 1893. Calling it Hermit’s Cave, tour groups carrying candles explored spacious walking passages and examined materials near the main entrance that Hubbard reported was from Ute Tribal members who had frequented the cave prior to his discovery. Groups also peered fearfully down a deep “Bottomless Pit” at the base of a steep incline called the “Devil’s Toboggan Slide.”

To illustrate its depth, Hubbard encouraged visitors to toss a rock down the shadowy abyss. In doing so, rocks would bang and clunk as they bounced down the sides, then never be heard again. He estimated the pit was in excess of 1,200 feet, which would be deeper than the floor of the adjacent Glenwood Canyon. By the mid-20^th century, the pit’s location had become lost in folklore. A September 1952 trip to the cave by members of the Colorado Grotto of the National Speleological Society failed to find it, though a suspicious depression in one of the cave’s several parallel walkways was thought most likely to be the location.

It took another three decades before cave historians correctly identified the real Bottomless Pit, the bottom of which was jammed with loose rocks and debris. It turns out Hubbard’s deep pit story was fantasy designed to thrill his customers – before being blocked, rocks tossed into the pit would quietly roll down a dirt slope into an adjacent passageway, giving visitors looking down into the darkness with flickering candles that it truly was bottomless.

Curiously, the location of the cave not far from Dead Man’s Gulch probably would have brought an ironic smile to the youngest Price. This gulch was not named after his uncle, which might have been appropriate, given the accidental shooting the year prior to the cave’s discovery, but for a much older tale. Two decades prior to Hubbard’s investigation of the area, in the 1870s, a prospector arrived alone in the booming city of Leadville to the east. He reported of a fearful attack by Ute warriors, who killed all 11 of his companions in their camp. The team of prospectors, who were trespassing deeply into Tribal territory in search of gold, were killed by the Native Americans without mercy. As the warriors began their attack on the camp, the men took a moment to quickly bury their gold in two tomato cans near a marked tree. Their hope was that they could escape the brutal attack, perhaps claiming they were simply lost, then return after the tribal members left to recover their precious treasure.

Unfortunately, only one man survived the attack, and while he spent time searching for the buried gold until his death in 1893, he was unsuccessful. Other visitors of the 1880s to the green valley reported they found remains of an old camp in what was named Dead Man’s Gulch.

By the early 20^th century, interest among local promoters grew in constructing a wagon road to Dead Man’s Gulch to replace Hubbard’s primitive horse trail from Spring Valley to the south. This road was constructed, and Hubbard’s cave became an attraction in the newly-designated Holy Cross Forest Preserve, designated by President Theodore Roosevelt on August 25, 1905. This became a national forest in 1907, and combined into the White River National Forest in 1945.

Hubbard Cave was a popular forest destination for many decades, despite a rough and often impassable access road from Lookout Mountain that ended at a trailhead in Deadman’s Gulch. In early September, 2017, the White River National Forest and the Colorado Correctional Industries program installed three large steel gates at the cave’s entrances, at a cost of $78,000. These gates were installed and securely locked to provide protection for a large, seasonal bat colony. This Townsend’s Big-Eared colony winters in the chilly temperatures of the cave’s entrance passageway, departing during the summer for warmer caves and mines in the region.

This seasonal habitation by the bats has prompted biologists and officials with the White River National Forest to consider a potential future reopening of the cave during the late summer months. This might be for guided Forest Service visits, similar to the summer guided program at Spring Cave near Meeker, or for permitted exploration by individual groups.

With access to Hubbard Cave currently limited to only a few trained biologists each year, checking on the health and numbers of the resident bat colony, the cave’s passageways are otherwise silent and still. Perhaps Hubbard and his client Price roam these silent halls, repeating forever the tragic events from November, 1891.

“And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller…”

• Vincent Price in “Thriller”

This post was originally published on April 27, 2020.