Featuring An Intimate 2 Mile Underworld Tour Of Intricate Drapery That Formed Over The Course Of Many Years
Discovered by a slave in 1859, the history behind Kentucky’s Diamond Caverns is as strange as the rock formations hidden beneath the surface.
Nearby Mammoth Cave used slave guides during the nineteenth century and Stephan Bishop, a slave in his teens, took trips into unexplored portions of the tunnels where he mapped the miles of new sections that he discovered.
“Cave guiding allowed slaves and, later, African Americans after slavery, to exercise some sense of power that they rarely experienced above ground,” said Park Ranger Leslie Price. “While guiding whites through the caves, they were in control.”
Today, the privately owned Diamond Caverns features an intimate two-mile underworld tour of intricate drapery lining the halls in cascades of naturally colorful calcite stone deposits throughout the entire tour. Visitors can explore the natural beauty and history of this underground natural phenomenon on high quality, well-lit trails. Water drips from the ceiling and a river runs through it as guides talk about the geologic mysteries and recall the history of the cave during the walk inside the cavern.
“Most of the rock you see in the cave is limestone, which formed in a warm, shallow sea,” said Rick Olson, ecologist for Mammoth Cave National Park. “This happened so long ago that what is now Kentucky was not only under water, it was located south of the equator. The water was clear and harbored many living things, similar to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia today.”
The passages have been altered little despite its 140-year history. Diamond Caverns sits within the Mammoth Cave Area International Biosphere Reserve and is surrounded by Mammoth Cave National Park, a World Heritage Site.
“When you go into Diamond Caverns, you will see a thick layer of limestone,” Olson said. “As you go down the entrance stairs, you are traveling back in time roughly 23,000 years for every step you take. The part of the cave we see on the tour is developed in about 100 feet of limestone, and at 40,000 years per foot, that means we are looking at about 4 million years of earth’s history during the Mississippian period in the walls of Diamond Caverns.”
Olson said that more than 10 million years ago, a river began to flow through the cavern and the entire cave was filled with sediment. The filling of the cave was linked to the advance of continental glaciers that affected all the major rivers in North America directly or indirectly.
“Glaciers never reached the Diamond Caverns area, and so Green River was indirectly affected,” he said. “In brief, higher water levels in the Mississippi River made it so that the Green River and its cave stream tributaries could not move sediment, and so it piled up. You can still see some of the gravels stuck high up in the ceiling of Diamond Caverns, and the shape of the tall canyon passage we travel through on the tour route was altered even while it was filled.”
Diamond Caverns unusual history continued into the 20th century. When the railroad was developed, Diamond Caverns was a major stop on the line and tourists could visit Mammoth Cave on the same day.
However, once people started to drive themselves to the area, more people went straight to Mammoth Caves, passing Diamond Caverns. With more than 15 caves in the region, the completion grew so fierce that the ‘Kentucky Cave Wars’ began.
“Local cave owners would use harsh tactics to attract visitors to their caves, such as false advertisements or spreading rumors about Mammoth Caves,” Price said. “In the Diamond Caverns you will be able to see some of the results of the cave wars where people snuck in and actually broke formations.”
To try to compete with the more famous Mammoth Caves, the owners of Diamond Caverns added electrical lights, concrete stairs and a bridge. Above ground, the lodge was made bigger and cabins were added to make the destination an authentic tourist attraction, but it wasn’t until the death of Floyd Collins a legendary spelunker in 1925 that the caverns became a popular tourist attraction.
His death brought national media attention to all the caves and soon after, Mammoth Cave National Park was established as well as a better relationship among the other caves. This aging jewel of a cave offers more than just stalagmites and stalactites, and you will experience more sights here than on most tours throughout the tunnels at Mammoth Caves.
Candice Reed
A graduate of Kelsey-Jenny College in Communications as well as a certified grant writer, Candice has written for The Los Angeles Times & The New York Times. She loves entertaining and all things French.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Cave Country RV Campground, providing RV camping for the largest RVs to "Pop-ups" Cave Country RV Campground is the perfect RV campground for your next trip to Mammoth Cave National Park.