This deep, rugged wash created difficulties for stagecoaches and wagons, and many drivers circled to the south instead of taking the time to hitch double teams for a direct passage. Ruts from thousands of wagons and stagecoaches still wind around and through Devil’s Dive. One stage driver recalled that horses had to run to give the stage enough momentum to reach the top of the opposite side, while passengers usually got out and walked across, leaving only the driver and messenger on the box. Italian immigrant Uberto Gibello, who earned a modest living digging wells and doing masonry work, homesteaded here in 1887 and over the next 23 years honeycombed the ridge with caves. He also built an unusual split-level home, two wells, water storage tanks, and rock and concrete irrigation channels on the terrace hillside in an unsuccessful attempt to start a vineyard. The caves included Shrine Cave, about 120 feet long, with numerous small shrines carved into the walls and a water well dug into the floor at the east end; the Main Cave, over 400 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 6 feet high, with entrances on opposite sides of the hill, now blocked by massive cave-ins; and the Gallery Cave and Room, a 150-foot branch of the main cave that ended in a gallery where Gibello cut rough benches along the walls.