Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Escape Room

Coming Mid-June 2024!

This escape room is based on an expedition of about 50 men that Alexander Spotswood (acting Royal Governor of Virginia) lead in 1716 into the Shenandoah Valley. This was one of the first exploratory expeditions into the Shenandoah Valley by the colonists. The journalist of this expedition was a Huguenot, Lieut. John Fontaine, who served as an officer in the British Army. On September 6, 1716, they rode down into the Shenandoah Valley on the east side of Massanutten Mountain and reached the Shenandoah River, which they called the "Euphrates" near the current town of Elkton.

After the journey, Spotswood gave each officer of the expedition a stickpin made of gold and shaped like a horseshoe on which he had inscribed the words in Latin "Sic juvat transcendere montes", which translates into English as "Thus, it is pleasant to cross the mountains."[4] The horseshoes were encrusted with small stones and were small enough to be worn from a watch chain.[5] The members of Governor Spotswood's expedition soon became popularly known as the "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe."

The escape room plot moves ahead to the 1920’s when Richard (a fictious character), a descendant of John Fontaine (the journalist who chronicled the Golden Knights expedition) was an eccentric recluse who spent his life (and all of his money) looking for the lost Golden Horseshoe badges. In the 1920s, he built a secluded cabin on Massanutten Mountain and rarely left. The cabin was passed down for generations, rarely used. When some of Richard’s grandchildren decided to build a resort on the surrounding property, they built around the cabin, in honor of their grandfather. But a lot of time has passed, and the County has condemned the cabin as unsafe. And it’s slated for demolition in the morning! One of Richard’s great-granddaughters believes that the mysterious recluse was up to something in that cabin, but could never figure out what. Today, she has been watching the resort’s lobby closely and has chosen the “smartest” guests to search the cabin for clues before the County destroys it. You and your group are the guests whom she chooses.

 

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