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"After this great lecture, the only person who knocked over a stalagmite was me," the governor said. "We were climbing up an incline and my heel knocked over a baby stalagmite. My kids have never let me forget it." Impressed with what he saw, Babbitt threw his support behind the clandestine movement to get the cave into public ownership. One of the biggest problems involved the business of obtaining an appraisal of the property and guiding the project through the legislative process without attracting publicity and jeopardizing the site. It took three more years, two more governors, two more state parks directors, and some tense, behind-the-scenes political maneuvering before the state bought the cave. Everyone involved was so consumed with the need for secrecy that State Parks Director Ken Travous asked legislative leaders to write a bill authorizing the cave's purchase but to obscure the bill's language so that no one would know exactly what was being purchased until the day of the vote. Senate Bill 1188 was essentially dummy legislation that made no mention of the cave. Its original wording dealt with routine accounting changes within the parks department. Until the final vote, only six members of the legislature knew that the dummy legislation actually authorized the state to buy the cave and the land around it for $1,625,000. The day the bill was passed, April 27, 1988, its language was changed to clearly authorize the creation of James and Lois Kartchner Caverns State Park. The State Senate approved the measure by a vote of 27-0; the House by a vote of 52-4. Fourteen years of protective secrecy came to an abrupt end, and the cave and new park were announced to the public.

While the discovery of the cave and the elaborate secrecy were remarkable, the steps that followed were just as significant. Almost immediately after the park was established, Travous put together a team of nationally known cave experts to study everything in the cave and everything outside that might impact the interior. Ron Bridgemon, former president of the Cave Research Foundation, an organization that studies caves throughout the United States, said that, to his knowledge, scientific studies had never before been done prior to developing a cave as a tourist attraction. "These studies are usually done after the cave has opened [to the public] and something has been messed up," he said. "Then they go back in and try to fix it. What the state is doing with Kartchner is unique."

In addition, experts in designing cave tours were recruited to supervise the underground construction and development. Extraordinary care was taken in the development, both above and below ground, to keep the cave in good condition. Kartchner Caverns became a state park so that it could be preserved and protected and used as a living classroom where the public could learn something about earth sciences and the fragile life of a cave environment. For Tufts and Tenen, the creation of the park was like an investment from which all other caves might profit once the public saw its remarkable features and learned the necessity of preserving it and other caves for future generations.

Text provided by Arizona State Parks

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