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Missouri's First - Watts Mill Traditional Geocache

Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Click to view the larger picture Missouri's First Geocache site.

The following is Steve's original listing:

Today at lunch(6-20-2000), I read about GPS Stash Hunting on the sci.geo.satellite-nav USENET newsgroup and found Mike Teague's home page. Check it out and then click on Missouri listed under "Active Stashes". http://www.triax.com/yngwie/gps.html I could not find any Geocache sites to go hunt this evening so I went out in the rain and made my own. I expect it to be the first in Kansas City(turns out to be the first in Missouri). I found a nice location along side the Watts Mill walking/bicycle trail in South Kansas City.

As of March 2002 the trail is now completed from a little east of here, to about 35 miles in the south end of Olathe, KS. I have walked the entire trail. It's paved all the way. It's great for walking, jogging, biking or roller blading.

The shortest distance from the trail is not the best route. Please check for muggles along the creek before you go after the cache. The muggles have stolen the cache twice so far. Please rehide as well as you found it or better.

A wheelchair can get fairly close.


8/25/2022 Note:

One faithful day in June of 2000 Steve Brown read an article about "GPS Stash Hunting" on an old USENET newsgroup website.  Fascinated by the idea but not seeing any local for him to find he went out in the rain that evening and hid a container along the Watts Mill trail.  In his log from that day he mentions that it is not only the first in Kansas City but the first in the state of Missouri adding "there was no caches closer than 350 miles to go hunt".  That other cache ~350 miles away was none other than Mingo, the oldest active cache in the world!

GC37 sat unfound for more than 3 months until it was finally discovered.  There were 25 unique finds that first year including one from none other than *gln the long time Missouri reviewer.  Since then it has been visited nearly 4,000 times by cachers from 27 different countries racking up more than 1,000 favorite points and helping to finish countless Jasmer grids.

In 2007 Steve Brown handed over ownership of the cache to Jim Shilt aka webscouter.  Jim was the caretaker until 2017 when he passed the rains to me (OrigamiFolder).  Like Steve and Jim before me I've found it a great honor to be the caretaker of this significant cache.  All 3 of us have had to replace the container and adjust the location to avoid muggles but we continue to do so to keep this beacon of geocaching alive for future visitors.  Scrolling through the old logs I see the names of many geocaching friends often mentioning it was among their first finds.  

This is currently the 14th oldest active geocache out of the more than 3 million worldwide. Please ensure that following your visit you have hid it in such a way to keep it alive for future generations. 

On this day I am officially moving it to avoid a housless camp and trail maintenance that has closed the original GZ area. Permission for this new location has been secured with Andrew Fleming the Area Superintendent (South District) for the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Kansas City.

Thanks,

OrigamiFolder (Dave)

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Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Guvf bar vf abj n terra ghor ba fbzr qbjarq ybtf. Gurer ner n srj yrnirf ba gbc bs gur pbagnvare gb uvqr vg sebz gur zhttyrf.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)