Born on July 11, 1882, James Larkin “Jim” White was a young, standard teenage cowhand when he spotted a bizarre, swirling pillar of black smoke rising out of the New Mexico desert. Upon riding closer in 1898, he realized the “smoke” was actually millions of bats spiraling out of a massive fissure in the earth. Driven by pure curiosity, White returned with a homemade rope ladder and a kerosene lantern, descending alone into the subterranean abyss of what would become Carlsbad Caverns.
For years, locals dismissed White’s wild tales of a vast underground wonderland filled with cathedral-sized rooms and delicate stone formations. To prove his claims, he began lowering skeptical scientists and early tourists into the pitch-black depths using a rickety iron bucket originally built to haul out bat guano. White’s relentless, lifelong promotion eventually caught the attention of the federal government, directly transforming a hidden desert cave into a globally recognized National Park before his passing in 1946.
