The Devil's Hole: Arkansas or Missouri?

This is a story I remember hearing as a kid and I found it on the website “Unexplained America” by paranormal author Troy Taylor.

In the northern part of the state is Boone County and somewhere within the county is said to be a small town called "Self'.  If you look on a map and find Harrison, Arkansas, you will see State Highway 7. About eight miles east of Harrison on Highway 7 is a place where the railroad tracks intersect the highway. The town of Bergman is about 1/4 mile east of this intersection. These tracks go northwest through Wooden Hills, Myrtle and Self. The town of Self is about 15 miles up these tracks to the northwest.

On the out skirts of Self is a strange and unexplored cavern called the Devil's Hole. The date of this story is unknown but according to legend, one day the owner of the land, where the cave is located, decided to check out the place. He climbed down a rope about 200 feet to a ledge where the shaft narrows to a point that can only be crawled through. He suddenly heard a vicious hissing from the darkness, perhaps like a large lizard would do, and he made a hasty retreat.

Sometime later, he and some men from town dropped a flatiron tied to a rope to the same place in the cave. They heard a hissing sound and the rope was pulled hard. When they pulled it back up, they found the flatiron had been badly bent and scored with scratches and teeth marks. They next tried a stone and the rope was pulled taut again. They pulled it back up and the stone was gone. No one wanted to dare and climb down to see what was in the cave. Occasionally, local stories apparently come from the cave, but the "Gow-row" as the natives supposedly call it, seems to prefer staying down in the darkness. The story dates back to around 1900 and many believe the monster may be some sort of giant lizard.... but nobody knows for sure. 

There is another variation of this story, but with a bizarre twist. This time, the land owner was discovered by some friends shortly after his adventure in the cave....his hair had turned completely white and he was wildly insane. Whatever he had encountered down in the cave had broken his sanity. You can read more about the legendary Gow-row creature at http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5669

In 1975 a movie came out called "Encounters with the Unknown" which featured another pit of this type that is said to be located near Hannibal, Missouri. . This low budget movie is narrated by Rod Serling and features three different stories about the supernatural. The second tale is about a large hole in Missouri. A young boy's dog goes missing and after searching for it , thinks that the animal might have fell into  one the large holes in the nearby woods. He tells his father who is then has himself lowered on a rope into the large  smoking hole, with the help of the town’s people. Strange growling noises start coming out, and  then suddenly the father's scream comes echoing up from the hole. He is quickly pulled out, and the men are then shocked to discover that the father's hair has turned white and he has also become stark raving mad. The father then runs off, screaming with his son following. The narration relates that they never did find out what he saw in the hole that caused him to go mad. For a low budget movie, it is actually a pretty good.

 You can drive to Self by going up Highway 65 north of Harrison about 12-15 miles or about 3 miles past the town of Prosperity (this town is very small like Self). There will be a small dirt or gravel road called Dubuque Road and you can follow it to Self.

I looked all over the internet, but there are no pictures of the cave entrance, even though it is suppose to be popular with splunking clubs. There is a cave called the Devil's Den in located at Devil's Den State Park, near Fayettville, Arkansas. Also I did find a story on the Creepypasta.com  site, which I believe is actually fiction. It relates the story from the land owner's point of view through some 1911 journal entrees,when he went into the cave.  Here is that story site: http://www.creepypasta.com/devils-hole-cave/