Getting the Shaft Traditional Geocache
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A quick park and grab at an unusual landmark. You are looking for a camo'd pill bottle. Only winter friendly if there is hardly any snow cover. There is plenty of places to pull over on the side of the road; so, please do not block the driveway leading to the central shaft building.
This cache is placed across the road from the site of the Central Shaft. The line of large rocks at this location serves as a marker for a mass grave belonging to some of the men who worked on the construction of the central shaft.
The Central Shaft was dug during the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel, which runs the entire four mile width of the town of Florida. The shaft allowed workers to work from the inside out as well as from the outside in.
Unfortunately, on October 19, 1867 while thirteen men were digging further down in the already 583 foot pit a terrible accident occurred at the Central Shaft. A tank of gasoline, which had been used in lighting the shaft, exploded. The explosion set fire to the buildings around the shaft and burned through the cables of the wooden lift that had been carrying up tons of rock from the Central Shaft. The burning lift hurtled down upon the men working at the bottom and turned the underground shaft into a giant torch. Huge stones and masses of burning timbers plummeted down on the men trapped inside of the shaft. The pumps used to drain water from the shaft were disabled by the fire and the shaft quickly became a water-filled pit.
The next morning, a brave miner, Mallory, was lowered by a rope into the shaft. He found ten to fifteen feet of water and floating, blackened timbers along with a scatter of debris, but no traces of men. With water rapidly rising in the shaft and without the proper equipment the bodies of the thirteen unfortunate workers could not even be recovered.
A full year later during the last days of October 1868, the bottom of the shaft is finally reached and all of the bodies secured.
This accident became known as what was thought to be the end of the Hoosac Tunnel. However the construction continued and finally in November of 1873 the tunnel was completed. Trains still use the tunnel today and the Central Shaft serves as an opening for train exhaust to escape the tunnel.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Abg va gur ebpxf!