Silly question
Alleged "study" headlined at RCS: Did Neanderthals live in caves?

Simple answer: Where caves are usable, EVERYONE lives in caves. The early settlers in Kansas took advantage of plentiful caves along the Kaw, where the river had carved under a limestone layer. Some of those caves were just indentations at the base of a bluff, others were deep and spacious. Most were used at one time or another. The biggest ones have been turned into a complete underground city beneath parts of KCK and KCMO.

I saluted one of the 'indentation' caves in my Cave Gas blog item and Poser set.



Speaking of Manhattan and limestone, the Kimble Castle is for sale right now. Only $1.5 million. (That's a genuine 'only'; the property is worth a LOT more by any rational standard.)

I used to walk past the Castle on the way to school and always wondered what it was like inside. Unfortunately Zillow didn't satisfy my curiosity about the original innards because the Castle has been "updated" with all the latest rich fuckhead crap. The original innards were long gone anyway. For most of the 20th century the Castle was subdivided into student apts.

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Irrelevant sidenote: I called it Kedzie Castle at first. Didn't seem right, felt like I was conflating it with Kedzie Hall on campus, which was also a castle; but I didn't know for sure. Checked KSHS, found Kimble Castle. Sure enough I was conflating two similar castles with similar names. Edited to correct. While searching KSHS, another K* Castle showed up, with a beautiful example of Emersonian Justice. The story of Knox Castle in Topeka:

Here are two photographs and an illustration from Saturday Evening Lance showing the exterior of John D. Knox's "Belvoir" home in Topeka, Kansas. The house was built in 1884 at the north end of Potwin on a 7-acre tract of land between Woodlawn and Elmwood Avenues and facing Grove Avenue. The rambling three-story structure--also known as Knox's Castle--cost $40,000 to build. John D. Knox, a Methodist minister, was employed by the Kansas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He arrived in Topeka, Kansas in 1865 and started preaching at the First Methodist Church. Knox discovered he had a talent for making money and eventually made a fortune by buying tax sale certificates and property. By 1871, Knox was president of Capitol Bank in Topeka, resigning in 1873 to become head of John D. Knox and Co., Bankers and Loan Agents. In the mid 1890s, the United States was in the midst of a financial panic, and on August 10, 1898 the Topeka Daily Capital reported that Knox filed for bankruptcy. He lost everything except the house his family continued to live in for several years. The house, which cost $40,000 to build in 1884, was sold for $23,000 to Herman Baumer. It was demolished in 1924 and the lumber was used to build a dozen bungalows in the Belvoir Court District.

Preacher Knox got rich by profiting from bankruptcies, and then went bankrupt. Justice. Couldn't happen today, of course; rich criminals (redundant) are rewarded with trillion-dollar bailouts and continue committing even larger crimes.

Labels: Answered better than asked, Emersonian justice

  ¶ 10:33 AM