July 23, 1897

The story is telegraphed from Harrodsburg to the Louisville Post that deputy collectors J.C. Wilson of Louisville and Tom Austin of Garrard county had just made a raid into the great Salt Peter cave on Crooked Creek this county. From the description given of the cave it would appear to be one of the most wonderful holes in the ground to be found not excepting the mammoth. This correspondent claims that two stills of 100 gallon capacity each were found a mile under ground and several hundred feet below the surface and that two or three boxes of human bones were discovered. Half a dozen Winchester rifles were picked up at the two stills that were singing merrily the lullaby of intoxication as the steam and smoke lazily rolled up. No mention is made of the officers having seen a human being anwhere in the cave precincts. Now it strikes us that these correspondents have been sending in teir cock and bull stories about the mountains long enough and intelligent reaaders throughout the state ought to know by this time that all the salt peter contained in the great cvave above mentioned and there are thousands of tons of it ther, would scarecely suffice to save the reproters on account of their misstatements whom so often draw upon their imagination for news items expecially when it has reference to the mountains of Kentucky and its people. We are heartly tired of this abuse. Of course we have some bad men, but show us any county or community that is clear of them. Give the mountains a small rest brothers and look after your toll gate raiders and other lawbreakers in a land that has so long been lauded to the skies as the greatest on Gods earth and where every citizen is supposed to be a leader in church and Sunday School. Give us a rest.