Dead Man's Hole Historical Landmark, Marble Falls, Texas

We stopped in Marble Falls on our way back to Glen Rose for a couple of days so we could get our grocery shopping done on Monday and be back at Tres Rios on Tuesday. While searching for Walmart I happened to see an icon for Dead Man's Hole Historical Landmark and decided to stop there before shopping. 

The haunting stories of bodies hanged, killed, and/or disposed of near and in the hole just off of County Road 401 earned it a Texas state historical marker and a place in local legend. The marker was put up after the late state Senator Walter Richter researched and wrote a narrative of the hole’s history for the Texas Historical Commission. His report contained information he obtained from interviews with his grandfather, who was one of the people who descended into the hole to retrieve bones and items of clothing found there. Richter has a close connection to one of the victims as well. “My direct ancestor was one of the ones murdered and put into Dead’s Man Hole,” said Walter’s daughter, Robyn Richter, who lives on the Richter ranch in Marble Falls. “Adolph Hoppe was my direct great-great-grandfather, an immigrant from Germany.”

Entomologist Ferdinand Lueders made the earliest recorded discovery of this cave in 1821. Notorious in the Civil War era, the hole is believed to have been the dumping ground for up to 17 bodies, including those of Pro-Union Judge John R. Scott and settler Adolph Hoppe, several Reconstruction-era county government officials, and Ben McKeever, who had a conflict with local freedmen. An oak tree which once stood over the cave was said to have rope marks caused by hangings. Powerful gases prevented thorough exploration of the site until 1951. The hole was platted in 1968 by the Texas Speleological Society and was found to be 155 feet deep and 50 feet long.