| James Larkin White | |
| Birth Date: | July 11, 1882 |
| Birth Place: | Mason County, Texas |
| Death Place: | Carlsbad, New Mexico |
| Occupation: | Cave promoter/explorer |
James Larkin White (July 11, 1882 - April 26, 1946) was a cowboy, guano miner, cave explorer, and park ranger for the National Park Service. He is best remembered as the discoverer, early promoter and explorer of what is known today as Carlsbad Caverns in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico.
Jim White was born on July 11, 1882, on a ranch in Mason County, Texas.[1] He started working in the cattle business at a very early age and preferred it to the school his father forced him to attend. He preferred "bustin' broncos to books and blackboards".[1] One day, when Jim had had enough of school, he begged his father to let him do something else. "I want to be a cowboy", he said. So, when he was 10 years old, his father agreed to take him to the southeastern corner of the New Mexico Territory. He left him at the ranch of John and Dan Lucas (XXX Ranch[1]). His father bought land at Lonetree, just west of the developing town of Eddy (Carlsbad today), and moved the rest of the family there three years later. Jim occasionally stayed at his family's small horse farm, but mostly lived and worked at the Lucas ranch.
An inscription reading "J White 1898"[2] was discovered deep within Carlsbad Caverns in the 1980s.[2] It provides witness to the presence of a 15- or 16-year-old Jim White.
While riding his horse through the Chihuahuan Desert looking for stray cattle with a fence mending crew for the Lucas brothers, Jim saw a plume of bats rising from the desert hills. It appeared to be a volcano, or a whirlwind but did not behave quite like either.[3] He tied his horse to a nearby tree and worked his way through the brush to the edge of a large opening in the ground. Jim described the moment by saying, "I found myself gazing into the biggest and blackest hole I had ever seen, out of which the bats seemed literally to boil".[3]
A few days later,[4] he returned to the cave with some rope, fence wire and a hatchet. He cut wood from some nearby shrubs and assembled a makeshift ladder. He lowered the ladder into the opening and using a homemade kerosene lantern, descended approximately to the first serviceable ledge. He climbed down an additional to a floor. Using the "sickly glow" of his lantern, he made his way into the cave. He felt as if he "... was wandering into the very core of the Guadalupe Mountains."
After reaching a chamber, he noted two tunnels leading off in opposite directions, one downward and to the right and one, more level, to the left. He decided to go left first and discovered the Bat Cave. He explored it for a while then proceeded down the other tunnel.
By the time he reached the first formations, he had "... crept cat-like across a dozen dangerous ledges and past many tremendous openings ...".[3] He saw more stalagmites, "... each seemingly larger and more beautifully formed than the ones I'd passed".[3] He encountered chandeliers, stalactites, soda straws, flowstone, pools of water, rimstone dams and other formations.[3] He dropped rocks into pits to determine their depth.[3] He rolled one boulder into a pit and it fell for a couple of seconds and then "... kept rolling and rolling until its sound became an echo".[3]
Then the light from his homemade kerosene lantern went out.[3] The darkness seemed to smother him.[3] Jim described the incident by saying, "It seemed as though a million tons of black wool descended upon me."[3]
After refilling his lantern from a spare canteen of oil, he made his way back to the surface.[3]
Jim returned to the cave with a 15-year-old Mexican boy. His real name is unknown—he was known only as Muchacho, The Kid, or Pothead.
Five days after Jim's first trip into the cave, he and Pothead made an exploration.[3] Carrying food, water, fuel and homemade torches, they began an exploration which lasted three days. They took a large ball of string to use to ensure their exit.
They explored approximately the same areas of the cave that the modern tourist trails cover[3] including the Big Room, and the King's Palace and Queen's Chamber.
The original record of the early events surrounding Jim White and Carlsbad Caverns comes from a booklet, self-published in 1932, titled Jim White's Own Story. The booklet was ghost written by Frank Ernest Nicholson in exchange for payment of a boarding bill.[5] Nicholson was a journalist and led the ill-fated Nicholson Expedition to Carlsbad Caverns in 1929 sponsored by The New York Times.
Jim White had a permit with the National Park Service to sell the booklet from the Underground Lunchroom. Dennis Chavez, a U.S. Senator, helped obtain the permit by putting pressure on the park. At first, the agreement was oral but later, it became more formal. Sales of the booklet ceased two months after Jim White's death.
One of the early guano companies dug a shaft making a more direct route to the guano deposits in the Bat Cave. It was serviced by a large iron bucket operated by a gasoline winch. This system was used to haul bags of guano out of the cave for use as fertilizer in places like the California fruit orchards. The guano was sold for 90 dollars a ton (2000lbs). Jim White used the guano bucket to transport hundreds of tourists into and out of the cave.
The original guano bucket was used as the stand in the Underground Lunchroom from which Jim White sold his booklets. Jim White Jr. later gave it to a man named Charlie Dugger and it was stored in his garage.
Jim White married Fannie Hill on January 1, 1912. She was eighteen and a longtime friend from the town of Lonetree.[5] Their first house was provided by the guano company. It was a "... two room shack, set practically on top of the small bat cave, which was several hundred yards from the main cavern entrance." Jim and Fannie had a son named James Larkin White, Jr., on March 23, 1919. Jim moved his family into a four-room house provided by the guano company when Jim Jr. was about two years old. It was a few hundred feet farther from the cave entrance. They did not have running water at the house; instead, Jim would take a burro to Oak Springs and let it loose to find its way home with two cans of water on its back.[6] Fannie would empty the water into a barrel when the burro returned.[6] They did not get electricity until 1929 or 1930 and it was only on during the day.[6]
Jim White died on April 26, 1946, in a hospital in Carlsbad, New Mexico, at the age of 63. He suffered from Bright's disease and died of coronary thrombosis. He told a reporter for the Carlsbad Current-Argus, two days before his death, that he felt well but was not ready to ride a horse to California, again. He is buried alongside his wife, Fannie, at Carlsbad Municipal Cemetery in Carlsbad. The epitaph on his tombstone reads "The Discoverer of Carlsbad Caverns".[7]
After his death, a movement was started to have a statue of Jim White erected at the cavern entrance.[5] Instead, a bronze plaque was placed in the lobby at the park visitor center which reads:
In 2011, a large, bronze statue of Jim White descending a wire ladder was unveiled at the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) building in Carlsbad, New Mexico.