Has the mystery of the Locust Road man-made cave been solved?

(Earlier, decorahnews.com posted a story (https://decorahnews.com/news/4082/a-unique-problem-surfaces-involving-the-man-made-cave-on-locust-road/) about how the Decorah Historic Preservation Commission would like to put a sign up in front of the man-made cave on Locust Road, explaining the history of the cave and why it was saved from demolition when Locust Road was reconstructed last year. Our story said the cave had "a murky history," but now we've been able to clear up many of the questions): The Decorah Historic Preservation Commission says the history of the cave is uncertain. It certainly has been a topic of discussion over the decades. Now the questions might have been answered. The Winneshiek County Historic Preservation Commission a few years ago hired Shay Gooder to do research for a publication called "Winneshiek County Stone Structures." Gooder's research resulted in the publication of a 512-page book and a 24-page pamphlet. The county's research quotes Virginia (Frye) Goodyear as saying the cave was built in the late 1800s as a root cellar for cold storage. The cave was on property located in a bend on Locust Road, near a house owned by Ernie Halse. Halse later moved the house to a lot north of Decorah, but the cave remained—of course. Virginia Goodyear's grandfather, Frank Frye, bought the property in 1936. In a letter to Decorah Newspapers writer Roz Weis in 2019, Goodyear noted that "There have been stories as to the use of the so-called cave as a 'last chance saloon' and that is very possible as my grandfather and Ernie (Halse) were bootleggers, as were a lot of people back in the day." Fast forward to 1947, when crews changed the route of Locust Road—and used dynamite to blow up stumps and rocks and other obstacles. Even after Locust Rad was rebuilt, several hardware stores in Decorah used the cave as storage for dynamite sticks they would sell to their customers, according to one person living in Decorah at that time. Eventually, the cave had less exciting times, although it was saved from demolition when Locust Road was rebuilt again in 2020. That's the history of the Locust Road man-made cave—a cave that was built in the late 1800s and remains intact today. As Virginia Goodyear concluded in her letter to Roz Weis at Decorah Newspapers, "(The cave) is part of Decorah's history."