I wish the rocks and trees could tell us more about the history of the land and the humans that have been here before us. We have some evidence that the land has been occupied but by who and when we don't know. There is a small cave along the Cliffs of Insanity with a spring running out of it. Climbing into the cave we find the ruins of a steel barrel - evidence that the cave was at some point likely used to make moonshine.
For about 200 ft along the west side of Muddy Toe Creek we can find these stone alters. Most are small and free standing but one was as tall as Cadie (5'7") and probably 8 feet in diameter. Another was built on top of a boulder. Perhaps they were part of a road or used as a fence line -although they don't seem to be in a straight line. If anyone else has better ideas of what they could have been used for, I'd love to hear!
In some of the rock shelters along the Cliffs of Insanity, the roof and walls are charcoal black. The owner told us that he believes these shelters were used to make saltpeter for gunpowder. (The process involves burning limestone.) A quick google search brought up a number of publications that reference saltpeter production from cave shelters in Kentucky in the years leading up to the war of 1812!
In one of the blackened rock shelters, there is this larger boulder. On first inspection you would think that it fell off the cliff above hundreds of years ago, but when you look underneath it we found wood logs with ax cuts - the boulder fell on top of some man-made structure.
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