A sign along Durham Street points the way toward Hellertown’s most famous tourist attraction.
It’s frigid outside, and salt has changed the parking lot from a tarry black to the gray palette of winter. Now on Christmas break from graduate school, I stop by Lost River Caverns to learn its story. I step inside the lobby and am greeted by display cases of fossils and beautiful quartz, with the spreading antlers of a taxidermized elk above them— the result of founder Erwin Gilman’s hunting skills. Beverly Rozewicz, the granddaughter of Erwin Gilman, sits with me amidst the treasures and relates the Gilman family’s history with Lost River Caverns.
Beverly, who has worked at Lost River Caverns since 1972, is intimately familiar with the items acquired by her grandfather which are displayed around the shop. When asked about the antique guns mounted behind the reception desk, Beverly explains Erwin’s propensity for crafting. “They were Erwin Gilman’s special interest,” she explains. “When he semi-retired and his son Robert took over the business, Erwin began both collecting guns and crafting handmade, 22 caliber, single-shot target pistols.”
The hobby was not just a pastime for Erwin, but also a talent. “He’d craft the guns to properly fit whichever person was buying them, to the point that one gentleman who bought from him won first place in a major competition,” she recalls. “The accuracy of the guns was very important.”
Now, the guns remain in Lost River Caverns as part of Erwin’s many collected items, along with assorted rocks and minerals, mounted animal heads and stone spears that Erwin himself crafted. While Erwin held an affinity for crafting and hunting, Beverly’s favorite item in the Lost River Caverns collection is a large, smoky quartz crystal that is displayed on the second floor. The crystal is emblematic of the uniqueness of minerals, and the ability of the underground world to always produce something surprising.
Though a wide array of attractions has brought an influx of visitors to the Lehigh Valley, at Lost River Caverns it is the mysterious underground that continues to draw visitors year after year. “We have another part of the business that’s rocks and minerals, and stone cutting, rock hunting and jewelry making, but really the dominant factor is people wanting to visit caves,” Beverly tells me.
True to its name, Lost River Caverns offers tourists a look at the lost river, a body of water that flows through the caverns. Though many people have tried to discover the path of the river both before and after it flows through the cave, it remains a mystery.
Lost River Caverns was not always an exciting attraction. The caves were discovered by accident in 1883, less than 20 years after the Civil War, during a quarry dig. Soon after their discovery, a large room in the caverns, later dubbed the Crystal Chapel, became a site for local dances. A wood floor was installed and townspeople would spend many summer evenings dancing in the cave, which maintains a constant 52 degrees Fahrenheit and likely provided a welcome refuge from the heat. Shortly before 1929, when Erwin Gilman first opened the caverns for tourism, the dances in the Crystal Chapel came to an end. Weddings, however, took the place of the dances and were hosted in the Chapel from 1949 until 2009.
The caverns remain a place of adventure, mystery and surprise. One of the tour guides at Lost River Caverns tells me how much she loves seeing the amazement of tourists who enter the cave for the first time. “The cave itself is so beautiful. It rocks. You discover something new every time you go down there. Getting to share that with new people is really exciting.” Of her many trips into the cave, the tour guide remembers one specifically for its unexpected adventure. “We had a group of school kids who came here the day we had that little earthquake from New Jersey, so they actually went home because their school was worried about the kids being underground. When the kids came back, they had been looking forward to this for so long and they’d already been within an arm’s reach of getting down into the cave, so their joy down there was so infectious. They were really awesome.”
Ultimately, sharing the wonder of the natural world with their visitors is what Beverly sees as the mission of Lost River Caverns. “Of course I hope that they really enjoyed the tour and that they’re impressed with the underground environment that they don’t normally see,” she says. “But overall, I hope they take away a greater appreciation of nature.”
Lost River Caverns is currently open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Hours are extended during the summer.) Visitors can tour the cave, walk the nature trail located adjacent to the store and browse items at the souvenir shop and jewelry supply area. Come admire Erwin Gilman’s collections and experience the beauty of the caverns!
Lost River Caverns founder Erwin Gilman’s gun collection is displayed in a lobby case inside the Hellertown cave’s visitor center.
The high-ceilinged visitor center and store inside Lost River Caverns features mounted taxidermy, tropical plants and a whole lot of history.
Helen Behe is an MFA candidate at DeSales University, where she is studying through the program’s poetry track for a degree in creative writing and publishing. Aside from her studies, Helen enjoys gardening, boxing and rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles. She is a resident of Bethlehem. Read more of Helen’s Then & Now series featuring local history-related topics here.
