Day 1: Our flight to Omaha and Robber's Cave Tour by Charlotte

 

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Another year, another trip! Today June 3^rd starts the first day of our 10-day long 2025 Summer Agriculture Tour in the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. As always, on the first day we get up before the sun comes up and start our morning with meeting at the Southwest check in at 5 am sharp. We quickly tagged our bags and made our way through the security check-in point for our flight that boarded at 7:40 am. With one small layover in Saint Louis, Missouri, only 2 hours, we boarded again for our final ending destination in Omaha, Nebraska.

 

     

We claimed our bags, grabbed our rental cars, made a quick food stop at Raising Canes then finally made it to our first stop of our trip at Robbers Cave Tours with our guide Joel Green. Not only was he our guide through these caves but he is also a published author of his book about Robbers Cave. This cave is the only one of its kind in the state of Nebraska holding lots of history to the events that happened below the ground. Robber’s Cave is a 5,000-square-foot, hand-dug cave located in Lincoln, Nebraska. In the late 1800s, German immigrants expanded a shallow natural cave located near Salt Creek by tunneling through soft Dakota Sandstone. Their excavation created three parallel chambers used for storing grain and barrels used at their local brewery. After the brewery closed, the Scarborough family bought the land in the early 1900s and opened the cave as a tourist attraction until the 1980s. During the cave’s long history, it served as a dance hall, party room, meeting room, movie theater, concert venue, and community center. One activity consistent through all these iterations was to have attendees inscribe their name or an image into the soft sandstone. Certain groups used this cave as a place of gathering for meetings such as incitation’s for the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as well as a known hideout for outlaws such as Jesse James, and Belle Starr after the Civil War.

 

Over time there have been many changes to the caves and the land that lies above it as 6 years ago it had different owners and was completely vandalized as they made upgrades to what it is today. They spent over half a million dollars to restore what was once destroyed but now beautifully displayed. Today it is used for education and tours as well as a great photography place. Some of the different unique things that were included within the cave was a well 64 feet down for water, a small cutoff tunnel for a bathroom or a “smooch room”, and firepole for easy drop-down access. Joel even mentioned one of the paranormal experiences he witnessed below in the caves as LED lights light up back and forth down the halls until suddenly, they shut off and one singular bulb lit up above him. We saw the video with our own eyes and ghost hunters as well as electricians have no explanation for this occurrence. This intrigued me as it makes me want to dig deeper into the things that could have happened. After this stop we made it to our hotel to unwind for an hour before going to Fireworks for dinner, which is a local restaurant in town. After we ate, we came back to the hotel and wrote thank you notes for the day and soon laid our heads to rest to be ready for day 2.

     

Seeing the layers of sandstone and other minerals that flowed like waves was interesting. Over the years there has been a lot of carvings in the walls as well as a few bullet holes.