Wonder Digging
Show caves or commercial caves are and have been very popular. My first exhibit 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 reopened shortly after of that. I am sure it has most likely been open and closed many times since my visit there.
It was one of the oldest commercial caves in Tennessee and was opened to the public in 1900. The door leading to the cave is padlocked, but apparently you can swim through the creek that comes out of the cave. From 1900 to 1917, flat-bottomed boats provided tourists with cave rides 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 around 1963. After Interstate 24 bypassed the cave for a couple of miles, visitors declined and slowly disappeared from public view. The cave had more than two million visitors until it was closed permanently in 2000.
An interesting account of a Rob Payne visit 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. Parking without the truck lights on, passing the barking dogs, holding a flashlight, quietly preparing the flashlights, and then heading towards the beautiful cave. What a wonderful place that it might reopen one day.
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. Coleman’s lanterns were carried by guides and tour members and were considered the best show caves in Tennessee.
Randy from Pelham, Tennessee posted additional information about the Wonder Cave property online.
The cave was run by the Raulston family until 1980 after the death of Frank Raulston. I got married there in ’92. My family traded a cow for ownership of the cave in 1900. The log house was the office until the welcome center was built (in the early ’60s) on additional land purchased by the Raulston family after my grandfather’s barn burned down. . The Raulstons purchased the Reider’s homeland from the Reider children after their parents died. The house was west of the welcome center, at the end of the road. My great-aunt Nanny had a house built on a lot of Reider’s house down the narrow gravel driveway, great-uncles Ben (across the welcome center) and Henry (across the big block from Ben’s) The other children lived in the area, but not in Reider’s place.
Of the 167 known show caves in the United States, 37 are located in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. The show caves have a problem, one of decay and overuse. For the mere fact that they are open to so much public traffic, dust, and slow build-ups, along with mold and algae growing around the lighting systems. Most show caves now turn off the lights as the tours go 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 looking would be great for the one-time visitor.
I strongly believe that we need to support show caves so that more people realize the wonderful treasures that remain 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 owners and operators.
