Picture Cave, a culturally significant site of Native American cave drawings in southern Warren County, has been identified on a list of the nation’s most endangered historic places, published …
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Picture Cave, a culturally significant site of Native American cave drawings in southern Warren County, has been identified on a list of the nation’s most endangered historic places, published each year by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The cave is considered a sacred site by the Osage Nation of Native Americans, according to the historic preservation organization. The site contains hundreds of pictographs from different eras of Osage history.
“Picture Cave has withstood many abuses, included more than a century of vandals painting and carving their names atop the sacred pictographs as well as looting,” the National Trust said in a recent article listing “America’s 11 most endangered historic places for 2022.”
The land where the cave is located is privately owned. In September 2021, the family that owned the land auctioned it to an unidentified buyer. The Osage Nation reportedly attempted to purchase the land, but was unsuccessful.
With little to no information about the new owner’s intentions for the site or its preservation, the National Trust says Picture Cave is among many connections to the past that are at risk of being lost.
“Many of the sites on this year’s list reflect communities that have been historically underrepresented in what we collectively preserve and interpret, which means society has often devalued or deemphasized the places connected to those stories,” according to the organization. “Without sustained recognition, preservation, interpretation, and funding, places like these are often at greater risk of loss and erasure.”
Current ownership records kept by the Warren County Assessor’s Office identify Picture Cave as being owned by an LLC corporation called “Morning Star and His Friends LLC.” Morning Star is a reference to one of the prominent painted figures in Picture Cave.
According to reporting by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the LLC was registered in Tennessee in September 2021, just days before the auction to purchase Picture Cave. The owners of the LLC are not identified in public records, the Post-Dispatch said.
