BENSON, Ariz — Kartchner Caverns, the Arizona’s state parks system’s underground flagship attraction with formations that have been growing for thousands of years, is no longer a teenager.
Former state parks officials who helped develop it were among hundreds of visitors who attended a 20th anniversary celebration for the park on Nov. 16, the Herald-Review reported.
Those attending included Dick Ferdon, a retired park ranger who stood guard over the cave’s entrance to keep intruders out during its early development.
Ferdon also helped Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen, who had discovered the caverns in 1974, map the cave’s passages.
“I slept in a travel trailer a few hundred feet from the sinkhole (entrance) for 11 months,” said Ferdon, now 73. “Going into the cave at that stage of its development and working with Randy and Gary was an experience I’ll never forget.”
Tufts and Tenen were cave explorers who discovered the entrance in 1974 in rocky ranchland in the Whetstone Mountains near Benson in western Cochise County.
Tufts and Tenen told the Kartchner family -- James and Lois Kartchner were ranchers who ran cattle on the property -- several years later but, but the discoverers otherwise kept existence of the caverns a secret for 14 years for fear that its spectacular interior formations would be damaged by unregulated exploration.
The family was sworn to secrecy until a plan was in place for the cave’s development, which took years of work before the park was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting Nov. 5, 1999.
Ken Travous, the former State Parks executive director at the time, helped ramrod the state’s acquisition of the caverns through the Arizona Legislature in 1988. Because of the perceived need to keep the cave system a secret before word leaked out, the legislation to put the property in the state parks system was produced in secret and then considered and approved by both chambers ion one day (April 27, 1988).
“The Kartchners were wonderful to work with. The family is dedicated to education and public service,” said Travous, who attended the anniversary event.
Ferdon was one of the special guests invited to the celebration for a panel discussion of the cave’s development.
“I’m glad State Parks is keeping the cave’s history alive through events like this,” he said. “There are a lot of great stories tied to the cave’s discovery and development.”
