If you’ve ever been floating down the Meramec river, there’s something that you may have missed. Relaxing in your canoe by yourself or drifting down the river with your family, there has been something in plain site that you might have not ever seen before. Want to know what it is?
Well, we recently discovered a door on the river. This door is located downstream from the Arnold Park railroad trusses, upstream from Telegraph road.
No house connected to the door, just the frame. So what could be down the stairs, if there are any, in this door? Here are the ideas that some people have suggested this door could have been used for.
Old Ice Box/House
Ice boxes/houses on the river have been around for years. They were used to store ice throughout the year, and were around before refrigerators became a thing. They would be lined with insulation in order to keep the water frozen during the hotter months. They were usually man made and put next to rivers or lakes for the natural source of water. Could this mystery door be an ice box/house?
[wpob id=”1″]
Trench Bunker
Trench bunkers are tiny concrete rooms that are dug into the ground and used for storing a number of things. It can range from food, to dumps for materials, and even living quarters. Could this door have been used for someone’s living space? Or maybe just a place where someone store their materials and food to keep it safe. It could have even been used by the military to store explosives but that’s a little bit out there.
Underground Mine Shaft
Since the only thing visible about this door is the frame, then it could more than likely be a mine shaft. Mine shafts are used for holding the supplies of miners, or can be used for civil engineering projects. Mine shafts are typically used for mining projects though. Who knows, this door could have been used as a mine shaft years ago, or even recently.
Entrance to Cave
Wouldn’t it be fun if the door was an entrance to a huge cave? Going down in it and being able to explore a new cave you never knew existed? Well, this could be the case. There have been plenty of times throughout history where mystery doors lead to beautiful caves, so it’s not impossible. Out of all these guesses, this is the one I hope it is!
What do you think?
Maybe the door opens up into a secret beach or maybe it’s just a door that leads to nowhere. It could lead to someone’s home or an underground secret club! We won’t know until we go down there and see for ourselves. Until then, we’ll have fun guessing all the possibilities of this strange door on the Meramec River.
Have you been in there or just want to take a guess? Let us know what you think could be past this door in the comments below.
Where exsactly on the river is it located? By map coordinates please if you can.
I would like to know where it is at on the Meramec?
WE WERE CURIOUS WHERE ON THE MERAMEC THIS DOOR WAS FOUND.
Where is this located at? I would love to see this. We float the river every year but I have never seen this door please share location with me. You can email it to me if need be so you don’t blast location all over social media. Thank you
An Active mausoleum
n. pl. mau·so·le·ums or mau·so·le·a 1. A large stately tomb For ? Guess, It Could Passably But Very Unusual A building housing such a tomb or several tombs. 2. A gloomy, usually large room or building. NOT A Place For Every The Meek Or Faint Of Heart???
Probably an old barn or root cellar that was flooded when the river went through.
I think it’s an old icebox/house, being that it’s so close to the river.
some kind of industry, so I would guess commercial because it looks like an expensive concrete pour. Mining, but what?
I’d like to know what you found. I never saw that while floating, myself, but I usually put in for the Meramec cavern float.
Locate Arnold MO 63010 on map. Then locate Hwy 231 aka Telegraph Road in south/southeast Arnold where is crosses the Meramec River. This door is up river from Telegraph bridge and below the train bridge that crosses Meramec. This area is sometime called lower Arnold
All of you people asking where this is, the author of this story, said where it is located! You might want to READ!
I never go that far on the meramec, usually from sullivan to robertsville. The first paragraph explains where it is located, near arnold.
Part of the underground railroad
Why not just take a look?
I have been in it before it was last fall, with my dad and brother. Right as you get to the door it drops off about 6 ft and there’s a small sqaure room with pipes and maybe some kind of pump or motor. To the right side of the foundation wall is another rectangular room lined in brick.
We weren’t really sure, we thought it might be a pump station.
If you read the article, the 2nd paragraph tells where it is. Jefferson County, where nobody “floats” the Meramec on a float trip.
Sue, we were there floating when we took the pictures.
I haven’t a clue. The ice house theory iis certainly possible. They would have sawed ice blocks from the river in the winter. Storing the blocks underground would have preserved them longer. Another possibility that I didn’t see mentioned is a smuggler’s station. During prohibition gangsters shipped booze along the rivers. The rivers were under federal jurisdiction. Local and state authorities could not inspect river boats. There were several mob connected ‘club houses’ along the rivers including the lower Meramec. The Cuckoos, the longest lived, most powerful of the prohibition era St Louis gangs were Soulard based but their territory extended all the way down into Oakville and north Jefferson county. Jimmy Michaels. who was blown up at 55 and Reavis around 1980, was a member of the Cuckoos. Probably the reason he lived so long was he spent the bloodiest years of those prohibition gangs wars in a Missouri prison. Still, it shows how entrenched the gangs were. When Al Capone needed some unknown faces for the hit we know as the St Valentine’s day Massacre, hesent to St Louis for some Cuckoos to pull the trigger. Our wars, here, were some of the bloodiest.
I really am a big floater.I have property on the black in Iron county near K bridge access.
Check county Web page for ownership might give clue to what used for. Especially if owned by MSD
The Arnold Historic Preservation Commission has done some checking on this and according to one of our long time residents says it is an old abandoned ice house that was used at the old Cedar Crest Country Club in Tenbrook.
You can find out more about the History of this club here:
http://www.myleaderpaper.com/features/looking_back/looking-back-to-the-cedar-crest-country-club/article_e4e07920-7bde-5438-812a-910ee7b4ec35.html
Back around November 2016 we floated by this structures and stopped and looked at it again. I believe the December 2015 floods got into this structure and washed out previous years of accumulated mud and debris. I always wondered what it was, but I now strongly believe it was a pump house. A pump and water tank are found inside this structure, and piping extends in and out.
I don’t believe this was ever an ice house. I believe the structure that Bernie Wilde speaks of is located on the Arnold side of the river.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154479626045660&set=a.1411849892166518&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154479626465660&set=a.1411849892166518&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154479626610660&set=pb.619250659.-2207520000.1484698269.&type=3&theater
It is a portal to another dimension and only the person who possess the amulet can unlock it’s secret door…. I have hundreds of amulets that look just like rocks that I would sell at $500,000 each. Maybe one of them will unlock it? But until the right one is found the space was probably used as ice House in the meantime. Just my opinion. Lol