Ellis Cave, Pope County, Illinois

September 2018

Gate Type: CUPOLA

Shawnee National Forest was the client for this project back when I still worked for Bat Conservation International. Ellis is a fair-sized cave that was receiving a lot of vandalism. We contracted with our good friend Jerry Fant to build this gate. He and I were pretty busy the entire day, so there are not a lot of photos. All photos © Jim Kennedy.

The steep sinkhole entrance. Clearly, this calls for a Cupola-style gate.
We used the ‘inverted corners” design to save time.
The nearly-finished gate, minus the top. I don’t have any photos of the final gate. Sorry!