By Howard Lovy
Introduction
John Wingate
Along the Missouri stretch of the Mississippi River, cut into limestone dating back 350 million years, lies a labyrinthine system of caves beneath the historic town of Hannibal. And, like the town, itself, the caves are rich with the ghosts of history.
Tom Sawyer, creation of Hannibal’s favorite literary son, Mark Twain, “knew as much of the cave as anyone, as did many an adventurous youth throughout the generations. For author John Wingate, himself a son of Hannibal, and for everybody who remembers the events of May 1967, when three boys disappeared into the caves without a trace, this sense of history and adventurous spirit is always tinged with tragedy.
Wingate has lived with this tragic memory for fifty years, since the three boys he knew personally disappeared and flung his old hometown into a nationwide frenzy of desperate search. In the time before the twenty-four-hour news cycle, the disappearance of these boys riveted the nation. Wingate, who spent his career as a broadcaster, knew that he would someday come back to this story and, if not give a sense of closure to a case that was never solved, at least provide a level of catharsis to friends and family of Joel Hoag, 13, his brother Billy, 11, and their friend Craig Dowell, 14.
Wingate has done this in a fascinating new book, Lost Boys of Hannibal: Inside America’s Largest Cave Search, published by Wisdom Editions, an imprint of Calumet Editions. In the interview below, Wingate discusses the book, Hannibal, the legacy of Mark Twain, and of course the boys who went exploring fifty years ago, and never came home.
LOVY: You’ve been a storyteller your entire career. But this is a story that dates back to your own childhood. What was the evolution of this book?
WINGATE: The idea for the book came to me in the late 1990s while visiting a memorial to the lost boys on Lover’s Leap, a high overlook in Hannibal. The research was time-consuming and challenging as I tracked down cavers after half a century, while juggling my professional communications work and family responsibilities. A few chapters were written about five years ago. This year, the fiftieth anniversary of the event, I committed to completing the task. I worked full-time on the book from February through May.
LOVY: Mark Twain’s boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri, seems almost to be a character in the book. How did you view this as you wrote?
WINGATE: Hannibal has a rich history with strong ties to great American author and humorist Mark Twain. His literary tales continue to be part of the fabric of the community. Tourism lures 350,000 people annually to Hannibal. Growing up, every child seemed to have the cultural DNA of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Becky Thatcher. The lost boys’ attraction to the caves brought the Twain narratives into our times in a very real and tragic way.
LOVY: When presenting the narrative, is there a juggling act between speculation and known fact?
WINGATE: While the boys’ final fate remains the ultimate unsolved mystery, the readers of Lost Boys of Hannibal will have a much better understanding of the nature of the complex caves and the calamity. They will come away with a good sense of what likely happened, based upon the informed opinions of seasoned cave experts.
LOVY: What was the most surprising thing you learned when researching this book?
WINGATE: I was surprised by the scope of the trauma that continues to linger from this tragedy. Everyone in the country felt the parents’ pain to varying degrees. Many people, especially friends and family, have remained haunted by this mystery for half a century.
LOVY: You were thirteen years old when the boys went missing. You knew some of them. Do you remember how you felt at the time?
WINGATE: I was stunned when I heard the boys were missing. Joel and Billy Hoag were friends from my five years attending Stowell School in Hannibal. At age thirteen, we weren’t accustomed to losing friends. We were barely halfway to manhood. Life was still unfolding and new. Like so many, I’ve carried the trauma and painful lack of closure for most of my life.
LOVY: At times, this is not the story of a town coming together. Fissures were seen as the search progressed, with competing would-be rescuers and accusations of grandstanding. Was there a circus-like atmosphere around the search? You’re a former broadcaster. Does it compare at all to the kind of twenty-four-hour cable TV coverage we’d see today?
WINGATE: It was a carnival-like atmosphere at the search sites. Many people with different agendas came together and the heightened emotions during the race-against-time search fed the chaos. Then, the search leader was Bill Karras, a seasoned caver who enjoyed the limelight and wanted visibility for his newly created Speleological Society of America. The near-nonstop news coverage was similar to what we know today as the twenty-four-hour news cycle. It was all very new for a town with one radio station and two TV channel options.
LOVY: You vividly describe conditions in the caves. You really get a feel for the darkness, the claustrophobia. How much cave exploring did you do as a child? Did you do any exploring as research for this book?
WINGATE: I’ve been through Mark Twain Cave and Cameron Caves several times, both are maze caves so I had a good understanding of the complexity of these subterranean, crisscross cave networks that lurked below our neighborhood. Growing up, we would explore the hills, bluffs, and caves that we were aware of, but I was never too keen to go very far into a cave passage. Having no cave expertise as a child, my instincts were correct.
LOVY: How much cooperation did you receive from the family and friends of the lost boys? Was it difficult, or cathartic, for them to talk to you about this tragedy fifty years later?
WINGATE: The Hoag family were very cooperative. Several siblings were very kind and helped to illuminate the story. They have remembered this story for half a century, and I hope the book is somewhat cathartic for them and brings a measure of closure so they have some peace.
LOVY: Children love to go exploring. It’s simply what they do. And, as you point out in the book, boys especially enjoy taking risks. So, what could have been done to prevent this disaster?
WINGATE: I’m not sure anything could have kept those boys away. The caves beckoned these boys. Parents need a solid understanding of teen brain development. Boys are in a very precarious place, cognitively speaking, during the teen years, prone to risk and not nearly as wary as girls are in terms of assessing their capacity to take risks. Teen boys love to show their bravery in front of friends, the studies tell us.
LOVY: There is a sense of both awe and danger in these caves, and that comes through in the writing. What emotions do these caves stir in you?
WINGATE: I find caves, absolutely fascinating. Missouri is the cave state with 7,300 caves, and more being discovered all the time. They comprise this often magnificent “Eighth Continent” below our communities and countrysides, offering exploration, scientific study, and grand adventure. Why did these boys want to explore? Because it’s there.
LOVY: Do you have your own theories on what could have happened to those boys?
WINGATE: Once readers understand the true nature of these caves and the extensive search, they will understand what likely happened. Still, we don’t know. Their fate remains the ultimate unsolved mystery.
LOVY: What is the main message you’d like readers to take from this book?
WINGATE: My hope is that the book will offer a measure of closure for this half-century mystery, one of the most vexing in twentieth-century America. The book also makes very clear that safe caving favors the trained and prepared.
LOVY: What books are on your nightstand (or e-reader) right now?
WINGATE: I like 3D books. I’m currently reading Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas; Ron Powers’s new book, No One Cares About Crazy People; and Sam Quinones’s Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic.
HOWARD LOVY writes book reviews and conducts author interviews for Calumet Editions, LLC. Previously he was executive editor at Foreword Reviews and directed news coverage and analysis on Foreword’s website and Foreword’s Clarion book review service. Howard is a veteran journalist, spending the past 30 years working for newspapers, magazines, wire services, and websites as a reporter and editor.
