Mushroom Caves

 

Tonight my old chapter of Master Naturalists held a zoom training by Dr. Greg Brick on the mushroom caves of Saint Paul. If you drive along Water Street between Robert St. and Lilydale you will drive by the mouths of caves facing the river. At one time this area was known as Mushroom Valley. The caves were made by humans to harvest sandstone to make glass and mortar. The City is worried about teenagers getting into trouble in these caves and have collapsed several and covered the mouths of the rest of them. The cave in this picture is in Minneapolis. It too was constructed to mine the sandstone. After mining was complete this cave was used to store beer. Now this cave has city sewage running through it.

This cave on under West Seventh Street where the old Schmidt brewery used to be. Beer was stored here too.

This is the entrance to the Wabasha caves. Years ago I took the gangster tour of this cave. The biggest money maker for this cave was hosting weddings. With Covid cutting back on weddings and the advancing age of the current owners Wabasha caves are now for sale. Asking price was $800,000.00 but you might be able to get it for less.

This advertisement was for the Wabasha caves in the 1930's.

Besides using caves to cool beer to grow mushrooms, caves have been used to age blue cheese. This picture was taken during World War II when France wasn't able to make Roquefort cheese. So that is when the cheese was made here in Saint Paul. The people in France got very upset with Minnesotan's calling their cheese Roquefort so the name was changed to blue cheese.