Found Underground
How Texas’ cavern attractions came to light
Nothing piques a highway explorer’s curiosity more than the roadside lure of a cavern or a cave. Many of us grew up traveling in the back of a station wagon, counting down the miles to the exit leading to attractions that revealed mysteries beneath the earth.
But consider the perspective of those discovering Texas’ publicly accessible caverns for the first time. More than a half dozen cave destinations are found in far-flung locations across the state. Their modern-era discoveries date back — in some cases — hundreds of years, and many were surely used, by animals and prehistoric peoples, for millenia before that. Here are five to get you started.
Cascade Caverns (Boerne) sheltered Lipan Apaches in the 1700s, as evidenced by artifacts and a cave fireplace. Kendall County youth, com- ing upon the caverns in the 1840s, carved their initials in stalactites in the caverns’ first room. Local stories about what was then called “Hester’s Cave,” after the owner, were adapted into a German language novel that was published in the 1870s and later translated into English. “Cascade Caverns is the first of seven Texas cave attractions to have been discovered,” says Rachel Tripp, general manager and cave explorer, “and has been entertaining folks ever since.” Actor Patrick Swayze even spent some time there, she says, for the filming of his 1990s movie Father Hood.
Cascade Caverns in Boerne was the first of seven cave attractions to be discovered in Texas.
Natural Bridge Caverns (Comal) was discovered on March 27, 1960 by four college students from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio after receiving permission from the Wuest family to explore what was thought to be a small cave. They were led to the site after hearing about an amazing 60-foot limestone bridge, an iconic formation that would become the Caverns’ name sake. On their fourth expedition, they uncovered a long, narrow crawl space that ultimately opened up into two miles of unexplored caverns. Today their discovery is recognized as a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior and is considered one of the world’s premier show caves.
Left Harry and Clara Heidemann, owners and developers of Natural Bridge Caverns, which was discovered by students from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. Right The natural 60-foot limestone bridge gives Natural Bridge Caverns its name.
At Longhorn Cavern State Park in Burnet, the Comanches used the original entrance and first room of the cave (now called the Indian Council Room) for shelter and ceremonial purposes — though the Indians’ superstition of caves kept them from venturing further into the darkness. In the 1840s, Texas Rangers per- formed a dramatic rescue of a San Antonio girl from the caverns.
In the 1860s, Confederate soldiers found large guano depos- its in the cave and began mining it to make gunpowder — and stored it in what is today known as the Gunpowder Room, as far from the natural entrance as people could reasonably venture at the time. The cave was also used by outlaws after the Civil War to stash loot and supplies and hide from law enforcement (legend has it that the notorious Sam Bass hid a large stash of gold there, still unfound). Sometime in the late 1800s, D. G. Sherrard purchased the tract and began exploring the cave more fully. Sherrard eventually opened a restaurant and nightclub in the cavern which flourished during Prohibition, but when the Depression hit, he sold the land to the State of Texas for the purpose of establishing it as a state park.
“Longhorn Cavern State Park formally opened on Thanksgiving Day 1932 with a ceremony and church service in what we call the Cathedral Room,” says park manager Evan Achilla. “Jim White, the man who explored much of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, was in attendance.” Longhorn Cavern was initially billed as the third-largest cave in the world, behind Carlsbad and Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.
Because Longhorn Cavern was formed by a flowing river (similar to Mammoth Cave) and not by dissolution (like Natural Bridge, Inner Space, Sonora and other Texas caverns), much of it was filled floor to ceiling with hard mud left behind by moving water. When the state purchased the property in 1930, a team of convicts was brought in to begin excavating the mud and install the cave’s first lighting system.
In 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps moved to the park to begin the bulk of excavation and development. In all, from 1934 through 1940 CCC Company 854 removed 2.5 million cubic yards of debris from the cave and repurposed much of it as road base for Park Road 4. The prison crew also installed lighting through the length of today’s tour route and built several beautiful buildings in the park in the NPS Rustic style of the period (the National Park Service loaned Texas the architects who designed the park buildings).
Note that while admission to the park itself is free with a Texas state park pass, the cavern is accessible only by guided tour, provided by a park concessionaire, for a fee.
As for the history of the Caverns of Sonora, the Mayfield family began ranching in Sonora around the turn of the 20th century — and discovered a 20-inch opening in the rocks, found in the southern part of the ranch when a dog chased a raccoon into it. Locals began exploring the cave sometime in the early 1920s. They could go back about 500 feet from the entrance to a 50-foot-deep pit in a section eventually known as Mayfield Cave.
Following the boom in American tourism in the 1950s, it’s not surprising that developers were eager to open up caverns as attractions. In 1956 Jack Burch, a caver from Oklahoma, saw the Sonora cavern for the first time — and detected signs of human impact in places where there shouldn’t have been any. He hoped to develop the cavern to halt such destruction and preserve the cavern for future generations. Development of the Caverns of Sonora started in 1959, and the attraction was opened to the public July 16, 1960.
Inner Space Cavern (Georgetown) is one of Texas’ newer cave discoveries — found in 1963 by the Texas Highway Department when Interstate 35 was being constructed and opened to the public in 1966. After remaining hidden for 10,000 years, Inner Space Cavern is one of the best preserved caves in Texas today, and one of the few places where prehistoric remains are found.
