Timpanogos Cave National Monument records [photocopies], 1930-1978

Timpanogos Cave National Monument was established by proclaimation of United States President Warren G. Harding in 1922. The three caves are located on the north flank of Mount Timpanogos, 35 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. The first of the three caves to be discovered was found by Martin Hansen in 1887. He and several men began taking people on tours of the cave. However, he soon stopped the tours as people began to strip some of the formations from the cave. This continued after Hansen stopped taking people on tours of the cave. Material from Hansen's Cave is rumored to be in places from the Museum of Natural History in New York City to the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This first cave now operates as the entrance to the other two caves. The second cave, Timpanogos Cave, was discovered in about 1915. Although many people visited this cave, it was not well publicized and was forgotten about for several years. In 1921, the knowledge of the cave resurfaced and a tangled web of claims on the site (including three mining claims) made the cave a hot topic until the United States Forest Service moved to protect the site by designating it as a "Public Service Site." Yet in the 1920s, Federal agencies were extremly small before the New Deal and the Forest Service relied on local participation and fund-raising to help secure the cave. During the same time that the Forest Service had taken over Timpanogos Cave, a third cave was discovered by George Heber Hansen and his nephew Wayne E. Hansen (son and grandson of Martin Hansen). This cave is now known as Middle Cave. The Forest Service began construction of a trail to the caves in the fall and early winter of 1921. Lack of snowfall that year helped and the trail was finished the following January. Regular tours of the caves began in the Spring of 1922. Later that year, the three mining claims that overlapped the caves sought to begin operations. A court battle began and in the meantime, a request was made to President Harding to designate the caves a national monument. This was accomplished only a month later when President Harding created the Timpanogos Cave National Monument. The mining claims were invalidated by court a month later. Campgrounds and visitor facilites were constructed at the base of the trail in 1923. That year 15,570 people made their way through the caves. The next year saw the dedication of the Monument, the installation of a new electric system, and the first placement of interpretive signs on the trail. 1933 was another year of change for the monument. Originally the three caves all had separate entrances and these caused traffic jams as people entering and exiting the cave had to use the same narrow pathway. This changed when the Civilian Concervation Corps (CCC) began making plans to connect the three caves by breaking through two thin walls between the caves. The rise of the New Deal and its expansion of Federal programs also allowed the National Park Service to take over management of the Monument from the Forest Service. As management of the Monument transitioned from local to Federal control, many new improvements to the trail and other facilities were made. When the caves were connected, wind began to blow through the three and wooden doors were placed to seal the caves and retain humidity. Over the next several decades improvements have been made to various facilities but the caves have remained much the same. The Monument remains a popular site despite the 1 and 1/2 mile-long trail that rises 1,160 feet. In 2002, the Monument received 114,736 visitors.