Gourd Creek Cave

The Gourd Creek Cave is an archaeological site in Phelps County in the Ozarks of Missouri, United States. It lies just northeast of the confluence of Gourd Creek with Little Piney Creek, approximately southwest of Rolla, the seat of Phelps County. In 1969 the cave was inducted into the National Register of Historic Places in Phelps County.
A 1957 Catalogue of the Caves Of Missouri gives the location of the cave as SE SE NW sec. 19, T. 36 N., R. 8 W. in the quadrangle identified by Yancy Mills.

Description

In 1922 Gerard Fowke published a report about excavation at this location, with a detailed description of the cave. Fowke noted that the integrity of the site was disrupted by treasure seekers due to a firm belief among the locals that the last survivor of an exterminated Native American tribe had hidden several "pony loads" of gold there.
The local historian John Bradbury in "A Social History of Some Phelps and Pulaski County Caves" writes on how the cave was used for social gatherings since late 19th century, after the development of iron mines in the vicinity and mentions that newspaper items about the cave started appearing in 1870s.
At the time of Gerard Fowke it was privately owned and still is.
Wallace Lee of the Missouri Bureau of Geology and Mines gives the following brief description: