Most of us are familiar with the beginnings of geocaching in the United States. Prior to May 1, 2000, the US government placed “selective availability” (for security reasons) on satellite signals which limited the accuracy of the handheld GPS receiver. On May 1, the government ceased the scrambling of the signals thus opening the opportunity for a new sport that has become known as geocaching. Two days after the scrambling was discontinued, someone hid a small container in Portland, Oregon and posted the coordinates on the sci.geo.sattelite-nav Internet newsgroup site. Three days later, two people had found the first geocache and the rest is history. But exactly how did this new recreational activity become the rage it is today in Oklahoma?

Geocaching took several months to reach the mid-west, but in October 2000, chaneyhouse (Paul Chaney) hid the first two caches in our state. Old Draper Trail, near Lake Stanley Draper in OKC, and Pine Creek at Lake Eufaula, were placed on October 13, 2000. On November 2, Cheney also placed Batcache and Comanche Stache in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. All four of these caches have since been archived. One interesting note about Paul Chaney: If you read his profile, he has a number of different caching handles, 39 caches hidden and has logged zero finds. Perhaps that is because he is, or was, an administrator at Geocaching.com.

The first person to find Old Draper Trail on December 9, 2000, was JRinOKC (J.R. Hehnly). J.R. discovered geocaching through a broadcast on TechTv in late 2000. Being a severe weather chaser, he already owned a Garmin Emap which he used to navigate the back roads of the plains. After visiting the geocaching site, he was surprised to find Old Draper Trail just a few miles from his home. JR remembers, “I was not very skilled at using the GPS. ... I walked around in circles for quite awhile until I realized that I needed to zoom in a few more clicks to see which way I needed to go. It was very exciting to finally find it.” JR’s log reads, “Got a few thorns looking for this one! It was our first search, and really our first time using my Emap. Looks like a critter chewed through the plastic lid. A little water was inside and some of the contents were strewn about. We didn’t have anything to leave so we took nothing. Some cool stuff inside though. I’m wondering what kind of animal would chew a 4-inch hole in plastic!”

Pine Creek was first found by sixgun (Meldon Belue) on February 5, 2001. His log reads: “This was our first time Geocaching. We really enjoyed the hunt!! We had no problems finding it. When we found it, the container had some water in it and a couple of the items were a little tarnished and wet. We poured out the water in the container and dried the items off. We signed the log book and traded out the magnifying glass and left a Bic lighter from our hometown. We really enjoyed the find!!!!”

Batcache was first found on February 25, 2001 by a group of Boy Scouts who were camping in the wildlife refuge. Forge writes this note: “Hey Paul, this is Wesley Hearell. Well, my brother Glen and I went up in the mountains camping over the weekend with Troop 32 and decided to check out the cache. The site was really good, but the rain storm the night before had washed out what ever you had stashed there, we found an empty box of crackers and zebra cakes. So I ran down the Mountain and got some stuff and went back up and deposited it there. It was loads of fun. I can see why you suggested repelling down to it, the first trip up I went straight up, but the second time I went around and came down to it. Anyway, good luck on future caches and good journey to all who set out to find this cache. P.S. You may want to restock the cache; I had very little to deposit there.”

On September 5, 2001 the caches in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge were removed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Since that time, only Virtual Caches have been allowed in the refuge.

In the fall of 2000, at the same time Paul Chaney was hiding his caches, SNUgeographer (Dennis Williams) was teaching a Physical Geography class at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany. Dennis had been letterboxing since 1998, when he read an article in the Smithsonian Magazine, and he began incorporating letterboxing and orienteering into his curriculum. Discussions of geocaching began to appear on the letterboxing Web site so as an extra credit assignment he encouraged his students to place caches in the area. jbohn and durwille took the challenge and placed four caches near Lake Overholser. Take a Test Drive, Dr. Bubbles, Picture This, and A Taste of Vienna were all planted on November 28, 2000 but have since been archived. Two of these disappeared before they were ever visited, but Dennis located A Taste of Vienna on December 2, 2000 and he and tomLmiller found Take a Test Drive on February 11, 2001.

One of the earliest geocachers in the OKC area was topotom/tomLmiller (Tom Miller). Tom first heard about geocaching on a news channel special report in the fall of 2000. He had been using GPS equipment professionally doing surveying and map work and was intrigued by the idea of using his GPS for a recreational activity. He relates how he bought a Magellan GPS 315 “as a Christmas present to myself” and set out to find his first cache. Tom hid Going, going, gone near the ball fields in Dolese Park February 17, 2001. An appropriate name because it was archived January 19, 2002.

The oldest still active cache, Where Eagles Roost, was hidden at Keystone Lake by Craig Wirtz on February 11, 2001. At the time of this writing, it has 140 entries in its log. Also in February of 2001, after being FTF Where Eagles Roost, havemanr (Ron Haveman) placed Greenleaf’s Suspension north of Grove. It is the second oldest active cache in the state and has 56 logs. The FTF this cache was graytcote on March 3, 2001. (Thank you, jpenn01, for recently adopting Where Eagles Roost.)

Other early caches that are still active include:

• Poke Around Lake McMurtry placed on March 3, 2001 by J. Pringler & L.
• Loman Mitch Remembers placed on March 24, 2001 by Sandy and Dennis Swara (this cache is temporarily disabled)
• The BFE Oklahoma Geocache placed on April 22, 2001 by Wrangler
• Appalachia placed on May 3, 2001 by graytcote
• Mohawk Park placed on July 1, 2001 by Bob & Genia
• Osage Hills State Park placed on July 7, 2001 by Joe Phillippe
• Old Oil Barrel Cache (aka stick tight cache) placed on July 7, 2001 by Todd & Tracy
• The Arrowhead Warrior placed on July 10, 2001 by mebioman
• And the list goes on ... and on ... and on ...

Early participants found out about geocaching in a number of ways. Swara0606 (Sandy and Dennis Swara) began caching in the spring of 2001. After renting a vehicle with a navigation system to drive to Florida, Dennis began researching a portable GPS and discovered geocaching.com. Drive-In (Wesley Horton) first became aware of geocaching when he visited Buxley’s Web site. Others became interested after hearing news reports or reading magazine articles. In August of 2001, Wesley appeared on Gaylon Culver’s news report, Is This a Great State or What, and introduced geocaching to the viewing public.

On September 29, 2001, a group of geocaching enthusiast met at Pesados in OKC. While reports are conflicting, it is believed that those in attendance included BootsWalker (Dan & Rose Wiland), Dan’s mom, Swara0606, Ramp & Frog (Jim & Jerry Stetler), Drive-In, Jonathan Pregler, souders&mellies, Chaneyhouse, and possibly some others. The meeting progressed pretty much as meetings do today with introductions and tall tales of caching finds. Park policies and rules were discussed. Rose recalls, “... We talked about using the force (Star Wars style) to find caches and it was agreed that many of us prefer that method once we get in the general area.” After several unsuccessful attempts (including a cancellation due to the rare six-inch snowfall in early March), the Tulsa Area Geocachers held their first meeting on April 6, 2002. Thus, the monthly meetings began.

In May 2002, TresOkies (Eric Clogner) organized and sponsored the first Oklahoma geocaching event. This first Spring Fling attracted around 25 people who camped and cached on a 1200 acre farm near Hydro. This event was so successful that is spawned the Annual Spring Fling and Fall Fest Events which attract geocachers statewide and even avid cachers from neighboring states. (If you have never attended one of these events, watch for information on the details pages. The next Spring Fling will be held May 20 and 21 at Lake Murray State Park.)

Currently, there are approximately 1700 active caches in our state. Perhaps the most visited one is Zink Park, which boasts 205 entries as of February 1, 2006. While all of these entries may not represent a “find,” no other cache comes close to this number of logs. Mitch Remembers is in second place, with 180 entries at the time of this article.

Many thanks to you, Paul, and the other early geocachers who were instrumental in launching this exciting sport in Oklahoma! I feel certain, at that time, you would have never dreamed geocaching would have become an epidemic encompassing the entire state by 2006. While it would be impossible to keep up with the number of active geocachers in Oklahoma, it is estimated that there are more than a thousand, with new enthusiasts being added daily.

WOW! Is this a Great Sport or What?