This Cache is placed as part of the 2022 New York State Park Central Region Geocache Challenge. There are approximately 70 geocaches hidden within 21 state parks and historic sites in this parks region, the first 100 people to find 45 or more caches will receive a special geocache challenge coin. If you are interested in taking up the challenge, you can pick up a geocache passport at any of the participating parks and sites or download it at www.nysparks.com
NYS Parks Saratoga - Capital region and the Taconic region will be hosting a similar challenge!! 10 caches found in the Sara-Cap and/or Taconic region Challenge can be used toward the Central Challenge.
Be sure to check each park or site’s unique web page for possible trail maps and other facility specific information. www.nysparks.com
Bring a GPSr with you, or download the caches before you leave home as many of our beautiful State Parks/ Historic sites have limited or no cell service!!!
This cache contains a unique stamp which must stay with the cache. Use this stamp to mark your passport. This stamp is NOT a trade item.
These geocaches were completely covered at the time of placing them. Please be sure to rehide them in the same manner to prevent accidental discovery by muggles. Thank you.
One of three Betty and Wilbur Davis State Park Challenge Caches. This geocache is hidden quite close to the park entrance. Please don’t park along the roadside. Park officials have asked repeatedly not to do this. Park a very short distance away at the park office and walk back to the cache.
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Betty and Wilbur Davis
1. Betty grew up in Otsego County living on the family farm in nearby Elk Creek, NY, just a few miles south of the park.*
2. Wilbur and Betty bought the land (where the park is now) back in 1949. They bought 200 acres from Betty’s father at $10/acre.*
3. When they weren’t here in central NY, Wilbur and Betty lived in Brooklyn where Wilbur worked as a funeral director.*
4. With wise investments in the stock market, Wilbur and Betty, amassed a modest fortune. They used that money to endow a new NY State Park on their property where you are now standing.*
5. Wilbur Davis was an excellent taxidermist.* He apprenticed in Moscow under the world famous Russian taxidermist Nikolai Konstantinovich Naz’mov, who prepared Vladimir Lenin for his mausoleum in Red Square. ** His body is still there today.
6. Betty had many jobs, but was most famously the 2nd Betty Crocker model and spokeswoman. She took over the role when actress Adelaide Hawley, the first Betty Crocker, retired in 1964.**
7. In 2001, Betty and Wilbur State Park opened, after they kindly donated all their property to NYS with the stipulation it become a state park for all to enjoy.*
8. In 1970, at the age of 59, Wilbur ran in the very first NYC marathon in a very respectable time of 4 hours and 3 minutes.**
9. Wilbur once shot a 14 point buck in his pajamas near the field below the Sunset Pavilion. How the deer got into his pajamas is still a mystery.***
10. Betty passed away at the age of 96 in 2012.* Wilbur passed away at the age of 101 in 2013.*
*Information obtained from the Daily Star, Oneonta, NY.
**Information from various and sundry unnamed sources from the Dark Web.
***Adapted from a long remembered children’s joke book, circa 1965.