Hollow Hills

Soon after the brewery barons became established immigrants settled along Fort Road which is now known as West 7th Street.  Rail lines were put in for the increased needs of the growing area and river landings were put in to link nearby Fort Snelling.  Many rail lines still are in the same locations today as they were when first built and the rail trestle still crosses nearby Duke Street and behind where the old Funk brewery once stood.

Ok so know you feel like an aficionado in Saint Paul brewing lore let’s get to the story of my visit:  

Today very little looks the same as it did when the brewery was in operation but beneath the streets the cave remains as a forgotten piece of the past.  In the last few years it was once again rediscovered by explorers and pretty pictures by tea lights ensued to be posted about on the web. 

One cold evening in March Gatsby and I decided it was time to stop by and check it out and take our own shots.  Access to the cave was fairly straight forward and a lot of fun where we had to walk down a storm drain for a distance and then squeeze through a couple of very tight cracks in old brickwork and sandstone to a short crawl passage that took us into the roof of the cave.  After literally falling into the brewery cave and landing on the sandy floor we had soon passed our camera gear in and setup to start taking shots. 

While Gatsby setup his shot looking at a crumbling brickwork barrel ceiling arch, I decided to check the place out as it was my initial visit to the cave.  As I wandered around poking at interesting things and looking in every crevice, Gatsby told me that a few others had previously been there and that there really wasn’t much left to see besides the half sand filled cave room and the filled in branch tunnels.  Of course I wanted to see for myself since I have spotted new things in several locations in the past.  This time was no exception to my observational luck as I discovered a very small and well hidden crawl tunnel that led down beneath the cave floor.  The only tracks around it were rat tracks and I could distinctly hear a couple squeaking at me in protest as I got on my belly to look inside with my headlamp. 

To my surprise I had discovered a second level to the brewery cave beneath the main cave floor that had never been noticed by others!  The tight crawlspace went a short distance where it split off in two other directions and after a short crawl grew much larger to where one can stand up.  Gatsby went in and check this new area out while I continued to poke around for other new discoveries.  As I poked around and explored the place I thought to myself that this must have been one of the few brewery caves in the area that was actually two levels rather than one large level for storing and chilling the barrels of beer.  The passage of time and the ever crumbling nature of sandstone had just buried and hidden this part of the cave for who knows how long. 

I only found one or two other points of interest including a possible other connection that was blocked off by a thick masonry wall.  After finishing my look about Gatsby had returned from exploring the new level and we started taking pictures. 

Since we were trying out a couple of new strobes we both had purchased the majority of the nights images didn’t turn out as nicely as we had hoped but a few did turn out well and the image below is my favorites of the ones I took.  Gatsby remarked later on seeing the image that it looked just like he was really exploring rather than posing for the now common and overdone candle light shots.  I was happy with that as I get very tired of exploring places and finding hundreds of old metal tea light holders scattered about locations and left along with other garbage like water bottles or beer cans.

 

I discovered later that this batch of tea light and other garbage was left by a passing yahoo and his teen groupies.  This was evidenced by each bit of garbage being in the exact same locations as the tea lights he lit for his photography.  I gotta give it to him that he can take some good images, but man, pick up the garbage when you go. 

Anyway, to the few people who do know how to get there I suggest taking the trip again and looking closer for the lower level entrance.  Watch for the occasional rowdy rat though.