Hidden Cave

Lore & Background

Hidden Cave was gouged out around 21,000 years ago by waves of Lake Lahontan and was flooded until about 4,000 years ago, when the Desert Archaic people used it for year-round storage. The cave was centered in the Toedokado Territory. A myth in the late 1800s told of a robber hiding treasure in a cave in the Grimes Point area. In 1927, four boys searching for the treasure discovered Hidden Cave after feeling a breeze from rocks near the entrance. A local miner, Mr. McRiley, later mined the cave for bat guano, and his reports reached archaeologist Margaret Wheat, who invited Mark Raymond Harrington to investigate. Harrington excavated in the 1930s, followed by S.M. Wheeler in 1940, and finally David Hurst Thomas in 1978–1979. The cave was used for storage of food, tools, and a few burials.

Reader's Guide

Today, the Grimes Point area is a destination for hikers and wildlife enthusiasts, known for its accessible petroglyphs. The cave is 150 ft deep and about 200 ft wide. Guided expeditions to Hidden Cave are sponsored by The Churchill County Museum and the Bureau of Land Management. A larger entrance has been created by engineers from the Bureau of Land Management so visitors no longer have to crawl into the cave.

Did You Know?

• A human latrine discovered in 1951 contained coprolites that helped prove people ate pinon nuts and bulrush fruits at the same time, even though they were not harvested in the same region.
• Five burials were discovered in the cave, showing evidence of deliberate placement.