wonder Digging

Show caves or commercial caves are and have been very popular. My first show cave was Wonder Cave on the north side of Monteagle, Tennessee.

I can remember walking through a narrow passage into a nice training room but not much else about the cave, this was in the late fifties and I was surprised to hear that it only closed in 1988 and may have opened again shortly after of that. I’m sure there’s a good chance it’s opened and closed many times since my visit there.

It was one of the first commercial caves in Tennessee and was opened to the public in 1900. The gate leading to the cave is padlocked, but apparently you can swim across the creek that runs out of the cave. From 1900 to 1917, flat-bottomed boats provided tours of the cave on the Mystic River that ran through the cave. When a new entrance opened, the boat tours ended. This cave was more popular than Ruby Falls until about 1963. After Interstate 24 bypassed the cave for a couple of miles, visitors declined and it slowly disappeared from public view. The cave had more than two million visitors until it was closed for good in 2000.

An interesting account of a visit from Rob Payne was posted online:

My favorite Wonder Cave memory was going out at night with my two older cousins ​​Ricky and Glen and their after-hours dates. Park without the truck lights on, dodge the barking dogs, with a flashlight, prepare the flashlights quietly, and then go down to the beautiful cave. What a wonderful place that might one day reopen.

Wonder Cave Bed and Breakfast in central Tennessee offered visitors an adventurous underground experience. In 1897, college students discovered Wonder Cave and the inn was built in the late 1920s. Guides and tour members carried Coleman flashlights and it was considered the finest show cave in Tennessee.

Randy from Pelham, Tennessee posted additional information about the Wonder Cave property on the Internet.

The Cave was run by the Raulston family until 1980 following the death of Frank Raulston. I got married there in ’92. My family traded a cow for the cave property in 1900. The log house was the office until the welcome center was built (early ’60s) on additional land purchased by the Raulston family after my grandfather’s barn burned down. . The Raulstons purchased the Reider house land from the Reider children after the death of their parents. The house was to the west of the welcome center, at the end of the road’s end. My Great Aunt Nanny had a house built on Reider Place land down the narrow gravel road, Great Uncles Ben (across from the welcome center) and Henry (at the other end of the big block from Ben’s) The other children lived in the area, but not at Reider’s place.

Of the 167 known exhibit caves in the United States, 37 are located in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Show caves have a problem, one of decline and overuse. Simply by being open to so much public traffic, dust and sluggishness accumulate, along with mold and algae that grow around the lighting systems. Most of the show caves now turn off the lights as the tours pass by. The lanterns used in Wonder Cave help reduce algae growth by preventing the formations from turning green. LED headlights are very inexpensive nowadays and the experience of entering a cave with a light that only shines in the direction you are facing would be great for the one time visitor.

I feel strongly that we should support show caves so more people become aware of the wonderful treasures that lie underground in our backyards. At the same time, we need to preserve the cave and all its wonders. This becomes a real challenge for show cave operators and owners.