APPENDIX

The Twelve Cave Regions of Missouri

Introduction

“Missouri has been called a ‘Cave Factory’ because the region is now undergoing perhaps the most intense episode of cave making in its entire geologic history,” says cave authority Jerry Vineyard. This is happening because the bedrock of the mountainlike region is a mixture of reasonably thick limestone and dolomite bedrock formations that can be slowly dissolved by groundwater. The region also has a temperate climate, is well vegetated, and has about forty inches of rainfall each year. This permits the groundwater to become charged with carbonic acid, the agent that makes it possible for the water to dissolve various mineral components within the bedrock, calcium carbonate in particular.

The cave-making process has been under way for tens of millions of years, and some of the oldest caves are thought to be the deeply buried cave systems that are currently full of water and discharging that water to create the giant springs of the Ozarks. Some of these water-filled caves are two hundred to three hundred feet below the mouth of the springs where the water comes to the surface in Ozark valleys.

Air-filled caves that riddle the hills of the Ozarks are also ancient by our reckoning of time. They have been made accessible by surface erosion and by streams that have carved out deep valleys, creating hills, bluffs, and ridges. This process has cut the landscape and caves apart, creating entrances and spring outlets. The erosion process also lowered the water table in the hills, allowing the caves to be drained during their water-filled stage of development and permitting air to fill them. Many of the caves became air-filled hundreds of thousands of years ago, perhaps as many as one or two million years ago. Since then, stalactites, stalagmites, and other cave formations have been deposited inside the caves by mineral-laden groundwater seeping, dripping, and flowing into the underground chambers and passageways. Surface streams that have invaded the caves since they became air-filled have also deposited great amounts of sand, gravel, clay, and other sediments, although some sediments in the caves originated when the caves were water-filled and in their earlier stages of development.

Groundwater entering the joints and crevices of the bedrock always seeks a lower level, and in so doing it often carries soils from the surface, which in some areas creates bowl-shaped or funnel-shaped depressions called sinkholes. Sinkholes feed groundwater into cave systems and sometimes actually breach cave ceilings to create entrances or pits at the bottom of the sinkholes. Any landscape that is characterized by the presence of springs, caves, sinkholes, and streams that disappear into the ground is called “karst topography.” Much of the Ozark region is considered a karst area. In some locations, there are so many sinkholes that they themselves create the hilly landscape, such as that near Pierpont in Boone County, on the northern fringe of the Ozarks; around Perryville in Perry County, on the eastern fringe of the Ozarks; in the Ha Ha Tonka and Montreal areas of Camden County; and in the West Plains and Thayer areas of Howell and Oregon counties.

There are many varieties of limestone and dolomite formations, each group having its own unique combination of characteristics. Mixed in with the limestone are other types of rocks and minerals that add to the complexity of the structure. Joints, which are the vertical cracks in the bedrock, and bedding planes, which are the horizontal meeting points between layers of bedrock, are the arteries that give groundwater access to the bedrock. Millions of different combinations of these structural elements result in uncountable combinations of interesting cave features, which is why no two caves look alike in their floor plans and have varied collections of water-deposited and water-sculptured natural wonders and curiosities.

Missouri caves come in an unbelievable variety of sizes, lengths, and shapes. All caves, regardless of their size, provide a habitat for animal life. Even small caves can be lavishly adorned with cave formations. Fewer than 3 percent of the caves in Missouri exceed a mile in length. The greatest majority of caves in the Ozarks are only a few hundred or few thousand feet in length. Underground chambers range in size from rooms barely large enough to accommodate two or three people, to gargantuan cathedral-like rooms that may be eighty to a hundred feet high, one hundred to three hundred feet wide, and several thousand feet in length.

Not all caves in Missouri are horizontal, particularly those that must be entered through pits. Vertical development, which can create more than one level to a cave, can make exploration difficult. Only a small number of pit caves in Missouri have vertical drops greater than one hundred feet.

Level cave floors are uncommon, which makes walking problematic. The floors of most wild caves are very irregular, cluttered with natural obstructions, slippery, muddy, and wet. To explore almost any cave in the Ozarks for any great length requires getting through water that can be shallow or deep and tromping through quagmires of clay that cling like glue to footwear, clothing, and skin. A caver may have to crawl or squeeze through tight places or crawl along stretches of low-ceiling passage that may be nearly filled with cold water. If a person is bothered even slightly by claustrophobia, caving is not a wise undertaking.

Climbing in caves is always a risky business but is often a requirement for reaching the ultimate goal. If you do not like rock climbing and are afraid of heights, caving may not be your best choice for outdoor adventure. The chilly temperature of the cave is not going to vary and neither will the temperature of the water, meaning that in Missouri hypothermia is always a risk in caving and the caver must be properly attired and equipped for such conditions. Total darkness is the ever-present condition in Missouri’s chilly, wet caves. Having adequate light and three or more dependable sources of light for each member of the party could mean the difference between life or death. Lose your light in a cave, and you are in serious trouble.

The greatest dangers in Missouri caving is loss of light, flash flooding, and serious injury from a fall. To avoid these hazards, cavers always inform family or other cavers when and where they are going underground and when they expect to be out so that if they fail to appear within a reasonable time, a rescue can be undertaken. They do not go caving when thunderstorms and heavy rain are possible—some caves may collect their water from distances as far as forty miles away and flash flood. Proper equipment, teamwork, caution, experience, and good judgment go a long way toward preventing serious injury or death.

There have been deaths in Missouri caves attributed to all of these causes and others, but it is uncommon for serious accidents to happen to members of the organized caving community because of training, teamwork, and experience. It is the organized cavers who are often called upon to perform cave rescues when they are necessary. No one should go caving alone or without wearing a hard hat. And it is wise to have at least one or more experienced cavers in the team.

The following is a brief overview of the cave resources in twelve Missouri regions and covers all of the counties in Missouri that currently have recorded caves.

Dad Truitt Cave Region

The three Missouri counties that constitute the Dad Truitt Cave Region cover 1,900 square miles. A total of 190 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Jasper, 26; McDonald, 106; and Newton, 58.

The land in this region is scenic Ozark country in the middle of the Springfield Plain and has a great diversity of landscape features ranging from the prairies of Jasper County to the rugged hills of McDonald County.

Tourism is a vintage industry here. J. A. “Dad” Truitt, the “Caveman of the Ozarks,” explored and developed most of the region’s show caves between 1916 and 1940. The show caves of this region have included Bluff Dwellers Cave, Crystal Cave, Mt. Shira Cave, Ozark Wonder Cave, Truitt’s Cave, and Wind Cave.

Jasper and Newton counties were at the heart of the Tri-State Lead-Zinc District from 1848 to the 1960s. When the lead mining industry was at its peak, prospectors and miners sometimes converted caves into temporary homes.

In the 1890s, miners discovered a one-room air-filled cave lined with crystals beneath the city of Joplin. They named it Crystal Cave. Groundwater pumping that had been necessary for mining had lowered the water table, emptying the void of its former water-filled condition. “The entire surface of the cave, top, sides, and bottom, is lined with calcite crystals, so closely packed together as to form a continuous sheet, and most of them of great size . . . as much as two feet long,” said geologist Arthur Winslow in 1894. The cave was subsequently opened to the public. It remained open for a decade. When mining played out and groundwater pumping ceased, the water table rebounded and the cave refilled with water, ending its days as a show cave.

In recent years, caving biologists have discovered that some caves of the region provide a habitat used by three endangered species—gray bats, the Ozark blind cavefish, and the bristly crayfish. Steps have been taken to protect the caves that harbor these fascinating creatures.

Daniel Boone Cave Region

The ten Missouri counties that constitute the Daniel Boone Cave Region cover 5,479 square miles. A total of 222 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Boone, 108; Callaway, 17; Cooper, 12; Gasconade, 10; Howard, 5; Moniteau, 36; Montgomery, 8; Randolph, 6; Saline, 4; and Warren, 16.

The land of this region stretches from the saline springs of Howard and Saline counties, which were developed by the sons of Daniel Boone, to the eastern edge of Warren County, where Daniel Boone’s grave is located.

The Missouri River meanders through the region. Running back from the river bottom for several miles are rugged hills and hollows where, in some locations, remarkable sandstone caves are located. The best examples are Graham Cave, in Graham Cave State Park in Montgomery County, and Arnold Research Cave, in Callaway County. Both caves are archaeologically significant.

Intriguing sandstone caves can also be found elsewhere, and rare dark zone rock art has been found in one of these caves. The whole of Warren County, which has several interesting sandstone caves, seems to be riddled with cave lore, most of it having been thoroughly checked out by cavers and found to be more fiction than fact.

On the uplands bordering the Missouri River in Boone, Cooper, and Moniteau counties there are well-developed sinkhole plains noted for caves that can only be entered through sinkhole pits and that drop fifty to one hundred feet. There are also extensive cave systems like the Devil’s Icebox in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park near Columbia. The Devil’s Icebox is the most extensive cave of the region, having more than six miles of charted underground passages. It is one of the most significant caves in the state.

Ranking second in the region for length and popularity is Hunter’s Cave in the Three Creeks Conservation Area, which is now a preserve for endangered gray bats.

Several caves of the region have yielded ice age animal remains and are important for their fossil resources. Caves of the area are also a habitat for endangered species, such as the gray bat and the pink planarian, the latter an extremely rare type of flatworm found only in the Devil’s Icebox.

Rocheport Cave, a few miles west of Columbia where Interstate 70 crosses the Missouri River, is a prominent gray bat preserve managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation. In the 1960s it was a privately owned show cave called Boone Cave. Although the public is no longer permitted to wander the corridors of Boone Cave, braver souls can enjoy special adventure trips in the Devil’s Icebox.

Heart of the Ozarks Cave Region

The eight Missouri counties that constitute the Heart of the Ozarks Cave Region cover 6,237 square miles. A total of 1,062 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Douglas, 107; Howell, 40; Laclede, 80; Ozark, 82; Phelps, 151; Pulaski, 358; Texas, 182; and Wright, 62.

Most of the land in this region is rugged, rocky, picturesque hill country abounding in spring-fed streams and rivers. Among the more than one thousand caves known in these hills are many of state’s most important and beautiful caves.

Many caves feature huge underground chambers, multiple levels, rushing cave streams, and thundering waterfalls. Caves 1,500 to 5,000 feet in length are common. Ten caves have been surveyed for over one mile, and several exceed two miles. Piquet Cave now has nearly five miles of charted passage. Continued survey work will undoubtedly add many miles to the cave systems of the Heart of the Ozarks area.

Most of the caves in this region have their entrances in bluffs and on hillsides, but there are also pit caves that drop seventy to one hundred feet. Buzzard Cave in Wright County has a series of vertical drops that help the cave reach a total depth of 308 feet. It is Missouri’s second deepest cave, second in depth only to Marvel Cave in Stone County.

Saltpeter and onyx miners left their scars in these caves but overlooked fabulous beauty. Hidden away are massive columns, lavish displays of stalactites and stalagmites, blankets of glittering flowstone, and deposits of anthodites, cave pearls, boxwork, rimstone dams, and moonmilk. It is no wonder that three of the area’s caves became show caves for a time—Onyx Mountain Caverns (Onyx Cave), Great Spirit Cave (Inca Cave), and Roubidoux Cave (Indian Cave).

Archaeologists have worked these caves for nearly a century and found plenty, including Indian burials. Paleontologists have also wandered these caves in search of ancient animal bones. They’ve been successful; the caves have yielded, among other species, the remains of ice age jaguars, short-faced bears, peccary, and ground sloth.

This is the land of the endangered gray and Indiana bats. More than thirty caves shelter these fragile creatures. The gray bats use quite a few of the caves for hibernating and rearing their young, while the Indiana bats use the caves mainly for hibernation.

Kansas City Cave Region

The seven Missouri counties that constitute the Kansas City Cave Region cover 4,253 square miles. A total of 20 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Cass, 2; Clay, 1; Jackson, 8; Johnson, 2; Lafayette, 1; Pettis, 5; and Platte, 1. While there are very few natural caves in this region, there are many underground limestone quarries in the Kansas City area in the Bethany Falls Limestone formation. Some have been converted into underground warehouses and put to other commercial uses. People sometimes mistake these old quarries for natural caves.

The premier caves of Jackson County are Unity Natural Tunnel, Harrison Parkway Cave, and Santa Fe Trail Spring Cave. Unity Natural Tunnel is 125 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 8 feet high. In 1906, George Pierson mapped Harrison Parkway Cave; this cave is about 140 feet long. Pierson’s map is the second oldest cave map on record in the Missouri cave files, second only to the map of Marvel Cave created in the late 1800s by S. F. Prince. Santa Fe Trail Spring Cave is of historic interest because it once issued a good spring that provided water for traders and immigrants headed west on the Santa Fe Trail.

Mark Twain Cave Region

The seven Missouri counties that constitute the Mark Twain Cave Region cover 3,796 square miles. A total of 139 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Knox, 2; Lincoln, 36; Marion, 17; Monroe, 2; Pike, 38; Ralls, 43; and Shelby, 1.

This region is endowed with the romance of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher, and Injun Joe, all of them fictional, but the cave where their make-believe adventures took place is very real. It is, in fact, one of the most remarkable labyrinthine caves in the Midwest and has almost three miles of confusing, intersecting passages.

In the hill opposite Mark Twain Cave is Cameron Cave, another maze cave with nearly five miles of surveyed passage. To the southeast, barely across the Marion County line into Ralls County, is La Baume Cave, a maze cave with nearly two miles of surveyed passage. And to the northwest, within the city limits of Hannibal, is Murphy Cave, a maze cave with two miles of surveyed passage.

The maze caves are formed in a belt of Louisiana limestone that has an unusual geologic history. Outside of this belt, which has severely limited boundaries, the caves of the region are more conventional in floor plan and extent. Most of the caves outside the belt are small, but Buzzard Cave in Pike County has more than one mile of surveyed passage.

Gray bats have found a home here, protected by three caves in Pike and Ralls counties. There are also several pit caves, one in Lincoln County that drops eighty feet, and one in Ralls County that plunges fifty feet. Another pit cave has yielded the ancient remains of black bear and bobcat.

Meramec River Cave Region

The three Missouri counties that constitute the Meramec River Cave Region cover 2,356 square miles. A total of 395 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Crawford, 214; Franklin, 100; and Washington, 81.

The Meramec River has nearly one hundred miles of fast-flowing, floatable water in this region bordered by majestic bluffs and rugged hills where caves and springs abound. The caves are endowed with size, length, and grandeur, which is why four of Missouri’s more outstanding show caves are found here—Cathedral Cave, Fisher Cave, Meramec Caverns, and Onondaga Cave. They’ve been show caves for many decades and are still attracting tens of thousands of visitors each year. All four caves are noted for their gigantic underground chambers festooned with impressive and unforgettable assemblages of cave formations.

Cavers have done a lot of mapping in this region. There are at least seven caves that have a combined total of more than eleven miles of surveyed passage. Among the wild caves noted for their length and beauty are Great Scott Cave, Hamilton Cave, Nameless Cave, Moore’s Cave, Jagged Canyon Cave, and Estes Cave. The wild caves of this region feature scenic entrances, multiple levels, deep canyons, high domes, waterfalls, underground lakes, and enough history to intrigue and please any history buff.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark visited Tavern Cave in Franklin County early in their historic expedition. One cave in the area contains rare tabular barite crystals the size of basketballs. Another has astonishing helictite bushes, a most uncommon type of cave formation. Onyx miners plundered some of the beauty here a century ago.

And of course, bats know good caves when they see them, and they’ve taken refuge here. Endangered gray bats use quite a few caves in this area.

Old Settlements Cave Region

The nine Missouri counties that constitute the Old Settlements Cave Region cover 4,758 square miles. A total of 852 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Bollinger, 4; Cape Girardeau, 42; Iron, 26; Madison, 21; Perry, 659; Scott, 3; Ste. Genevieve, 73; St. Francois, 21; and Stoddard, 3.

This region is where white settlement first took root west of the Mississippi River. The French explored and settled here in the 1720s and opened the state’s first lead mines.

Caves are plentiful in the northern half and central zone of the Old Settlements Cave Region but play out quickly in the southern extremities as the area approaches the lowlands of the Missouri Bootheel. Only a few small caves are found in Bollinger, Scott, and Stoddard counties. Caves are larger and more extensive in Cape Girardeau, Madison, and St. Francois counties but are still modest in size compared to most caves throughout the Ozarks. Iron County has the only cave in this region where endangered bats have taken up residence—Indiana bats use the cave as a hibernaculum.

For Ste. Genevieve and Perry counties, it is a whole different story when it comes to caves, especially Perry. Here, the landscape sometimes appears to have literally “caved in” because of overlapping sinkholes. Cave passages honeycomb the bedrock. There are more caves per square mile in Perry County than in any other county of the state. It may be the most cavernous county in North America. Perryville has more than forty-five known caves just within its city limits.

At present, Perry County has 659 recorded caves, and the number keeps climbing. For the past forty years, Missouri cavers have been methodically surveying this dark and forbidding underworld and have charted more than 150 miles of cave passages. Among the most extensive caves of the county are Berome Moore Cave, Lost and Found Cave, Meisner Crevice, Mertz Cave, Mystery-Rimstone Cave, Snow Caverns, Hot Caverns, and Zahner Cave.

Pit caves are common in this region, and their shafts sometimes appear bottomless. Among the deepest pit caves are Fantastic Pit at 106 feet and Echo Pit at 120 feet. Elsewhere pits ranging from 40 to 80 feet deep in a single vertical drop are fairly common.

Many of the caves of Perry County contain beautiful features that include rimstone dams, waterfalls, banded travertine, picturesque gypsum formations, and massive flowstone curtains. One cave of this region has one of the state’s largest stalagmites.

The caves are also water sculpted with stunning scenic underground arches and natural bridges, fluted pit walls, and scalloped, Swiss cheese–like bedrock. Ice age animals walked the dark corridors of these caves or fell into pits and died here tens of thousands of years ago, leaving behind their bones and tracks.

Osage River Cave Region

The ten counties that constitute the Osage River Cave region cover 5,900 square miles. A total of 485 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Benton, 42; Camden, 166; Cole, 21; Henry, 22; Hickory, 21; Maries, 36; Miller, 63; Morgan, 30; Osage, 21; and St. Clair, 63.

The Osage River valley is noted for its two giant man-made lakes—Lake of the Ozarks behind Bagnell Dam, and the Harry S. Truman Reservoir behind Truman Dam.

The Lake of the Ozarks was created in 1931 and Truman Reservoir in 1979. Both lakes inundated caves; however, the caves flooded by Truman Reservoir are small. They were recorded and studied before the lake was formed. The caves beneath Lake of the Ozarks unfortunately were not so small and not carefully researched. The Lake of the Ozarks was formed before caves were considered important enough to record, map, and study. No one knows how many caves lie beneath the surface of the lake, but considering the cavernous nature of the basin area, there may be more than one hundred inundated caves. Several were noted for their large chambers, history, length, and beautiful formations.

The caves of Benton, Cole, Henry, Hickory, Maries, Osage, and St. Clair counties are relatively small but not in every case insignificant because many of them are habitats for gray and Indiana bats.

There is a cluster of bluff caves at Monegaw in St. Clair County that are rich in outlaw history of the 1870s because this locale was frequented by the James and Younger gangs. Cleveland Cave in St. Clair County and River Cave in Osage County were show caves early in the twentieth century. Hickory County has two caves that were mined for barite in the 1930s.

The creation of the Lake of the Ozarks stimulated show cave development here, beginning in the 1930s. Bridal Cave, Jacob’s Cave, and Ozark Caverns are still open to the public. Bridal Cave, noted for its beauty and underground weddings, is located right on the shoreline of the lake. Jacob’s Cave, noted for its ice age bones and delicate formations, was the first cave opened to the public after the Lake of the Ozarks was formed. Ozark Caverns in Lake of the Ozarks State Park is noted for its exquisite showerhead cave formations.

Other caves once commercial in this area include Ancient Grotto (Vernon Cave), Arrow Point Cave (Wright Cave), Bunch Cave (Big Niangua Cave), Fantasy World Caverns (Stark Caverns), Flanders Cave, Indian Burial Cave (Big Mouth Cave), and Mystic River Cave (River Cave).

Some caves in this region once served as Indian burial grounds while others were mined for onyx and guano. Caves in the Barnumton area of Camden County once supplied saltpeter for a gunpowder plant on Fiery Forks Creek.

The two most outstanding geologic aspects of this area are in Camden County and feature caves and sinkholes. They are Ha Ha Tonka State Park and Carroll Cave near Montreal. Carroll Cave is world class in size and extent. Survey work underway at the cave has already surpassed twelve miles. The cave has huge chambers and passageways, is more than one level, and features beautiful formations and an underground river that feeds one of the region’s large springs.

Riverways Cave Region

The eight Missouri counties that constitute the Riverways Cave Region cover 5,409 square miles. A total of 997 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Butler, 6; Carter, 79; Dent, 96; Oregon, 147; Reynolds, 64; Ripley, 12; Shannon, 571; and Wayne, 22.

If there were a Fountain of Youth, it would surely be hidden somewhere in the primeval beauty of the Riverways Cave Region. This is the land of giant cave springs where the earth turns itself inside out and such enormous quantities of cold, fresh, springwater gush forth that four gemstone-clear Ozark rivers have been born—the Current, Black, Jacks Fork, and Eleven Point. The Current and Eleven Point are so highly regarded that they have been designated National Scenic Riverways.

The region is heavily forested, with deep, rugged Ozark valleys where beauty runs wild and the spring caves run deep—so deep, in fact, that some of the spring throats do not bottom out until they’ve descended three hundred feet into the earth. But between the surface and the spring outlets are sinkhole pits in the hills that open into gigantic underground lakes. The throat in the Devil’s Well sinkhole opens to a ninety-five-foot drop into an unbelievably large lake room, where the water itself is one hundred feet deep.

Among the most extensive caves in this region are Round Spring Caverns, a show cave with more than one mile of surveyed passage, and Wind Cave, a wild cave with more than seven thousand feet of passage. But these caves pale in length to Powder Mill Creek Cave in Shannon County; cavers have mapped this cave’s awesome innards for seven miles.

In a cavernous region so blessed with underground rivers and lakes, one would expect to find caves with rich ecosystems. Indeed, the southern blind cavefish and the Salem blind crayfish live here, and so do endangered gray and Indiana bats, which use caves in Dent, Oregon, Reynolds, and Shannon counties. The caves in this region harbor great beauty, often in the form of fine displays of helictites, aragonite crystals, cave pearls, massive flowstone, great boxwork, golden calcite, lily pad formations, and remarkably long soda-straw stalactites.

Moonshiners once hid their illegal stills in these caves, and Indian-artifact hunters and buried-treasure seekers left spoil piles from indiscriminate digging. Yet the scars they left mar the beauty of fortunately only a few caves.

This region is noted for show caves, including Devil’s Well, Rebel Cave, Emerald Grotto (the Sinks), Cardareva Cave, Lewis Cave, Round Spring Caverns, and Keener Cave. At Keener, dugout canoes that resemble outrigger canoes or French pirogues were brought up from the bottom of an underground lake in the 1930s and 1960s. The whereabouts of these old canoes today is not known.

Two other natural wonders in the Riverways Cave Region must be mentioned—the Grand Gulf in Oregon County and the Gulf in Wayne County. At the Grand Gulf, a great cave system collapsed eons ago, creating one of the largest canyons in the Ozarks. A great natural bridge spans the gulf, and the water that invades this chasm after rains drains into a cave that feeds Mammoth Spring, miles away in Arkansas. And at the Gulf, in Wayne County, in the darkness of a large, one-room cave that can only be entered by boat, rests the deepest underground lake in Missouri. Its water is two hundred feet deep!

Shelter Cave Region

The three Missouri counties that constitute the Shelter Cave Region cover 2,335 square miles. A total of 60 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Barton, 14; Bates, 5; and Vernon, 41. These counties are along the Missouri-Kansas border, about halfway between Kansas City and Joplin. They feature a rolling landscape mixed with wetlands and tallgrass prairie drained by the Marais des Cygnes, Grand, Little Osage, and Marmaton rivers. It is a panorama of cropland, pastures, old fields, and grain- and livestock-farming areas.

The foundation of the region is 80 to 100 percent layers of sandstone, thin limestone, and shale mixed with layers of coal and clay, which do not support the development of caves. The only cave-related features of this area are sandstone shelter and talus caves in a belt of land five to ten miles wide. Little in the way of artificial light is needed to explore them because they penetrate the bedrock less than seventy-five feet. The shelter caves are simply deep overhangs, and the talus caves are crevices in rock and boulder piles.

The most outstanding shelter caves are Morris Cave, with an entrance 151 feet wide and 25 feet high; Indian Shelter Cave, with an opening 101 feet wide and 20 feet high; and Jimmy-Jim Cave, with an entrance 200 feet wide and 25 feet high.

The caves of this area do not contain typical cave formations but they do feature gypsum flowers, ornate cross-bedding, and outstanding natural fretwork structures, which have the appearance of honeycomb or brickwork.

Springfield Cave Region

The eleven Missouri counties that constitute the Springfield Cave Region cover 6,633 square miles. A total of 1,457 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by county, is Barry, 144; Cedar, 19; Christian, 224; Dade, 55; Dallas, 27; Greene, 368; Lawrence, 44; Polk, 38; Stone, 305; Taney, 149; and Webster, 84.

This scenic Ozark region is home to Springfield, the largest city in the Ozarks, and Branson, the “Country Music Capital of the Ozarks.” Vacationers also flock to one of the nation’s oldest theme parks, Silver Dollar City, to Lake Taneycomo, a trout fisherman’s paradise, and to Table Rock Lake, one of Missouri’s largest man-made recreational reservoirs.

Tourism is an old industry here and leads the economy. Where tourists congregated, show caves multiplied. Some of the caves that were used as show caves in this region are Civil War Cave (Smallin Cave), Crystal Cave (Jenkins Cave), Crystal Caverns, Doling Park Cave, Emerald Lake Cave (Martin Cave), Fantastic Caverns (Temple Caverns), Marvel Cave (Marble Cave), Old Spanish Cave, Sequiota Cave, Talking Rocks Cavern (Fairy Cave) and Wonder Cave. Four of these caves are still shown to the public.

Wild caves are everywhere in these hills. They are huge, lengthy, multilevel, and spectacular. At least a dozen caves have more than one mile of surveyed passage, and many of the remaining caves in the area are about a half-mile to a mile long.

Deep pit caves lurk in the hills, especially in Barry County, where Farwell Cave reaches a total depth of 227 feet. Two vertical drops in Brock Cave total 140 feet. The Devil’s Hole plunges to 185 feet, and other pits in the region reach depths of 70 to 100 feet.

While endangered gray and Indiana bats use at least fifteen caves in the region for maternity sites and hibernating, it is the presence of the blind salamander, blind crayfish, and especially the Ozark cavefish that excites biologists about the underground resources of this area. The Ozark Cavefish National Wildlife Refuge has been established here in hopes of protecting these delicate creatures. The Ozark cavefish lives in only a few caves in southwestern Missouri, northwestern Arkansas, and northeastern Oklahoma. Another rare species is the Tumbling Creek snail, which lives in Tumbling Creek Cave, home of the Ozark Underground Laboratory near Protem in Taney County. This lab is the only underground cave laboratory in the United States.

Early in settlement history, saltpeter was mined from caves in the Springfield Cave Region. Moonshiners hid their brew in the caves during Prohibition, and guano miners and buried-treasure hunters stalked these caves as well.

Beauty reigns in these caves as the presence of so many show caves testifies, but wild caves harbor splendor as well. Gypsum needles and petals, cave pearls, giant rimstone dams, stalactites, stalagmites, drapery, and massive cascades of flowstone add to the features that attract spelunkers to these caves.

Two particular caves that grace this wonderful cave region must be mentioned. Both are time vaults—River Bluff Cave in Springfield in Greene County (described in Chapter 1), and Lon Odell Memorial Cave in Dade County. Lon Odell Memorial Cave, named for a pioneer caver of the region, preserves ancient Native American footprints, “stoke” marks (where an Indian who explored the cave had rubbed torch bundles to keep his fire burning), and the tracks of ancient cougar and bear.

St. Louis Cave Region

The three Missouri counties and one metropolitan area that constitute the St. Louis Cave Region cover 1,720 square miles. A total of 346 caves were recorded here as of April 2007. The cave count, by metropolitan area and county areas, is City of St. Louis, 29; counties of Jefferson, 162; St. Charles, 22; and St. Louis, 133. Most of the notable caves are located in Jefferson and St. Louis counties. St. Charles County and the City of St. Louis have very few caves listed.

One of the characteristics that distinguish the caves in the St. Louis region is their vertical development along fissures in the bedrock. Pit-entry caves are fairly common. Several pits drop 60 to 70 feet. Breezy Pit plunges to a depth of 106 feet. Crescent Pit reaches a depth of 120 feet; it is the deepest pit cave in the St. Louis area, and it also features a high waterfall.

Lengthy caves are not uncommon here. Cave of the Falls is the area’s longest cave with 2.8 miles of surveyed passage, and Catacomb Cave has more than one mile of passage.

Overhang Cave in St. Louis County has yielded the bones of a bear. Gray bats frequent Pleasant Valley Cave, which is one of the better-known wild caves in the area. And one cave in the area was completely destroyed by onyx miners about 1900.

Parks and special areas noted for their caves include Castlewood State Park, Cliff Cave Park, Bohrer Park, and Rockwoods Reservation.

The most important phase in the history of the caves of the St. Louis area was their use by breweries during the nineteenth century. One of these was Cherokee Cave, formerly used by the Lemp Brewery and noted for its ice age animal fossils. It was also a popular show cave in the 1950s.