The Heritage Geocache Challenge will go Live on Saturday, March 1st.
Going to the grocery store wasn’t always just about getting food or supplies, especially if you lived in the Between the Rivers before it became Land Between the Lakes. In the BTR, going to the grocery store might involve playing a game with friends and neighbors around a potbelly stove or simply catching up on local news or events in the community.
In the early 1900s, the BTR was surrounded on 3 sides by rivers, not lakes. Most of the time, supplies arrived on boats and then would be carried inland by horse drawn wagons and later by trucks. In those days, especially in the BTR, communities relied on one another for the transportation of goods and information. Hucksters, grocery store owners, and mailmen were sometimes all one individual who took it upon themselves to ensure their neighbors, family, and friends had access to the knowledge and supplies they needed to thrive.
What sets the BTR apart from other rural areas is their culture of interdependence, of supporting one another through good times and bad. BTR store owners and the culture that surrounds BTR grocery stores exemplifies these qualities. Many store owners were those who had been able to make and save enough money to open and stock their stores. They offered credit and provided trading opportunities. Some owners would also operate huckster trucks or deliver the mail which facilitated their ability to stay in touch with what was going on in the community.
In most parts of the country, hucksters or peddlers were typically seen as competition to store owners. However, in the BTR hucksters were a necessary means to an end. The fact that many BTR store owners operated as hucksters highlights this necessity and the BTR culture of cohesion that makes their history so unique.
Is it their shared history? Is it their isolation from other communities due to lack of transportation and communication? Is it their interdependence and mutual support that they cultivate by having to overcome adversities together?
These geocaches offer more than a fun challenge, they provide a perspective of LBL when it was the BTR. The Between the Rivers communities offer us a unique opportunity to not only explore the layered answers to those questions but we also get to partake, in a way, in that feeling of community solidarity. Because the BTR became LBL we all get to learn, explore, and maybe even exemplify the characteristics of the BTR that gave it those strong roots of community that persist today.
By understanding their histories and their stories we gain an opportunity to learn something that we can apply in our own lives. What ways can you foster community in your area?
The annual Heritage Geocache Challenge is put on by the Heritage Program at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area as part of our outreach to the public, to get people to explore their forest and their history, and to share the unique heritage of the families from Between the Rivers.
This is the tenth year of the Heritage Geocache Challenge at the Land Between the Lakes and, like in previous years, we like people to learn about the histories and events that took place between the rivers. In each watertight box is a laminated and folded card with information about sites near where you are visiting. Take a moment to look this card over and you might see a historical photo and learn about the people who once lived in this wonderful place we now call the Land Between the Lakes! The geocaches might not always be located at the precise location discussed on the cards, so explore the area and see what you can find.
For the “Land Between the Lakes 2025 Heritage Geocache Challenge: General Stores Between the Rivers”, there are 7 geocaches placed across Land Between the Lakes related to historical communities. If you locate each geocache, and collect a numbered aluminum tree tag from each cache, you can turn them in at the Golden Pond Visitor Center for one of 150 Challenge Coins created for this event.
We ask that you respect the cultural and environmental resources that belong to us all on the National Recreation Area. Each and every one of us are stewards of the land. If you pack it in, please pack it out and feel free to remove any modern trash that might have been accidentally dropped by fellow hikers or geocachers. But don’t remove or disturb cultural items that might have been there for decades as these offer us clues to the way people lived and used the landscape in the past.
If you’re interested in participating in the 2025 Heritage Geocache Challenge, visit www.geocaching.com and find “LBL Heritage” after registering (if you haven’t already).
There are 7 geocache locations focusing on different historic communities between the rivers. Links to each of this year’s individual geocaches are posted below. You must be logged in to geocaching.com for these links to work:
