Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico: The Story of Its Early Explorations, as Told by Jim White

Jim White discovered Carlsbad Caverns as a young cowboy in the 1890s, and this is his story, told in his own voice around 1940. What begins as a curious kid lowering himself into darkness with a homemade lantern becomes a decades-long obsession with mapping an underground kingdom of stone. White writes with the plain-spoken grit of the American West, recounting rope climbs into impossible depths, the electric thrill of turning a corner to find formations no human had ever seen, and the slow, often frustrating campaign to protect the caverns from exploiters. His partnership with a young Mexican boy known only as 'the Kid' expands the exploration, and together they push deeper into the earth's mystery. The book is both adventure narrative and advocacy document: here is a man who found something extraordinary and spent years trying to make the world care. The prose is of its era, straightforward and sometimes dated, but it carries genuine wonder and the stubborn conviction of a discoverer who knew he'd found something that mattered. For readers drawn to the American Southwest, the history of exploration, or the quiet heroism of one person changing a place forever.