[Vision2020] Death of 'Caveman' Ends an Era in Idaho

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Idaho Statesman at:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/04/23/1164899/death-of-caveman-ends-an-era-in.html

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Death of 'Caveman' ends an era in Idaho
Richard Zimmerman, known to all as Dugout Dick, succumbs at 94
BY TIM WOODWARD

Known as the "Salmon River Caveman," Richard Zimmerman lived an
essentially 19th century lifestyle, a digital-age anachronism who never
owned a telephone or a television and lived almost entirely off the land.

"He was in his home at the caves at the end, and it was his wish to die
there," said Connie Fitte, who lived across the river. "He was the epitome
of the free spirit."

Richard Zimmerman had been in declining health when he died Wednesday.

Few knew him by his given name. To friends and visitors to his jumble of
cave-like homes scrabbled from a rocky shoulder of the Salmon River, he
was Dugout Dick.

He was the last of Idaho's river-canyon loners that date back to
Territorial days. They are a unique group that until the 1980s included
canyon contemporaries with names like Beaver Dick, Cougar Dave and
Wheelbarrow Annie, "Buckskin Bill" (real name Sylvan Hart) and "Free Press
Frances" Wisner. Fiercely independent loners, they lived eccentric lives
on their own terms and made the state more interesting just by being here.

Most, like Zimmerman, came from someplace else. Drawn by Idaho's
remoteness and wild places removed from social pressures, they came and
spent their lives here, leaving only in death.

Some became reluctant celebrities, interviewed about their unusual
lifestyles and courted by media heavyweights. Zimmerman was featured in
National Geographic magazine and spurned repeated invitations to appear on
the "Tonight Show."

"I ride Greyhounds, not airplanes," he said in a 1993 Statesman interview.
"Besides, the show isn't in California. The show is here."

Cort Conley, who included Zimmerman in his 1994 book "Idaho Loners", said
that "like Thoreau, he often must have smiled at how much he didn't need.
É What gave him uncommon grace and dignity for me were his spiritual life,
his musical artistry, his unperturbed acceptance of life as it is, and
being a WWII veteran who had served his country and harbored no
expectations in return."

His metamorphisis to Dugout Dick began when he crossed a wooden bridge
over the Salmon River in 1947 and built a makeshift home on the side of a
hill. He spent the rest of his life there, fashioning one cavelike
dwelling after another, furnishing them with castoff doors, car windows,
old tires and other leavings.

"I have everything here," he said. "I got lots of rocks and rubber tires.
I have plenty of straw and fruit and vegetables, my dog and my cats and my
guitars. I make wine to cook with. There's nothing I really need."

Some of his caves were 60 feet deep. Though he "never meant to build an
apartment house," he earned spending money by renting them for $2 a night.
Some renters spent one night; others chose the $25 monthly rate and stayed
for months or years.

He lived in a cave by choice. Moved by a friend to a care center in Salmon
at age 93 because he was in failing health, he walked out and hitchhiked
home.

Bruce Long, who rented one of his caves and looked after him, said the
care center "had bingo and TV, but things like that held no interest for
him. He just wanted to live in his cave.

"People said he was the only person they'd ever known who was absolutely
self-sufficient. He didn't work for anybody. He worked for himself."

Born in Indiana in 1916, Zimmerman grew up on farms in Indiana and
Michigan, the son of a moonshiner with a mean streak. He rebelled against
his domineering father and ran away at a young age, riding the rails west
and learning the hobo songs he later would play on a battered guitar for
guests at his caves.

He punched cows and worked as a farmhand, settling in Idaho's Lemhi Valley
in 1937 and making ends meet by cutting firewood and herding sheep. In
1942, he joined the Army and served as a truck driver in the Pacific
during World War II. When his service ended, he returned to Idaho and
never left.

He raised goats and chickens, tended a bountiful vegetable garden and
orchard and stored what he couldn't eat or sell in a root cellar. A
lifelong victim of a quarrelsome stomach, he survived largely on what he
could grow or make. Homemade yogurt ranked among his proudest
achievements.

He was married once, briefly, to a pen-pal bride from Mexico. The other
woman in his life, Bonnie Trositt, tired of life in a cave, left him for a
job as a potato sorter and was murdered by her roommate. He claimed to see
her spirit in the flickering light of a kerosene lamp on the cave walls.

He rarely went to church, but read and quoted continually from the Bible.

Services are pending. A brother, Raymond Zimmerman, has requested that his
remains be sent to Illinois.

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A lifetime of living alone in solitary places shows in Dugout Dick's face
in this photo shot in 2002. Born Richard Zimmerman, he was the last of
Idaho's legendary loners. Zimmerman died Wednesday.

http://tinyurl.com/Salmon-River-Caveman-1

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Dugout Dick's caves, dug with a pick, shovel and prybar, became an
informal tourist attraction on this hillside near Salmon.

http://tinyurl.com/Salmon-River-Caveman-02

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Dugout Dick's caves, dug with a pick, shovel and prybar, became a virtual
tourist attraction on this this hillside near Salmon.

http://tinyurl.com/Salmon-River-Caveman-03

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Rest well, Caveman.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown