According to an authentic article in the Louisville Courier-Journal for
September 29, 1901, the managers of Mammoth Cave, having occasion to
examine the records at Bowling Green, found that cave designated as a
corner of a section of land in 1797; which antedates by some years the
threadbare legend of Houchins and the wounded bear.
During the saltpeter times, 1812-1816, elsewhere described, men came and
went in carts or on horseback. Seventy years ago Dr. Davidson told the
Transylvania University about visiting the “Green River country,” so
called in honor of General Nathaniel Green, the hero of Eutaw
Springs—not for its emerald tint. He hired a barouche at Henderson and
traversed a dozen counties to Mammoth Cave, which Dr. John Croghan had
just purchased for $10,000, intending to “clear out the avenues and make
them accessible for an omnibus to the distance of three or four miles,
and erect a sort of hotel in the Temple” (the old name of the Chief
City).
Charmingly did Julius Benedict, sixty years ago, narrate the adventures
of Jenny Lind and her party, as they went “by the very worst road in the
United States, but amid most delightful forest scenery,” from Nashville
to Bowling Green, and thence to Bell’s Tavern, that famous old hostelry.
The rest of their journey lay along the edge of “jagged, abrupt glens,
along sweeping meadows and budding woodlands,” to the queer old building
where “Dr. Croghan did the honors of his subterranean dominions in the
most agreeable manner.”
As recently as my own early visits a line of stage coaches ran from Cave
City, owned by Andy McCoy and managed by Henry C. Ganter, who still
entertains willing listeners at the Cave hotel by his racy stories of
pioneer days. How grandly the bugle-flourish used to herald the coming
stage-coach, and how everybody used to rush to greet the passengers, and
how eagerly the negro servants cared for the luggage! Guests still come
by carriage, on horseback, or by automobile; and many avail themselves
of the steamboats plying on Green River, where a system of locks and
dams has made it practicable to land within half a mile of the Cave
entrance. No more delightful river-ride than this can be found in the
Middle West, or more diversified by frowning cliffs, wild forests,
opening amphitheatres that smile in summer with rustling fields of corn,
with here and there attractive villages and flourishing cities.
But the majority avail themselves of the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad, connecting with the Mammoth Cave Short-line, whose terminus is
near the Cave hotel. One enjoys the comforts of modern travel while
passing by a magnificent panorama of hill, valley, and undulating plain.
“Knobs” several hundred feet high, capped by the Chester sandstone,
above the solid St. Louis limestone, appear as cones or pyramids, whose
strata remain horizontal from base to apex. Amid the Knobs run
stream-swept valleys. In level regions are fertile farms, though
frequently the soil is iron-stained a fiery red. One could hardly find
anywhere a more charming trip by rail than from Louisville to Glasgow
Junction, or one more unique than from the latter station to Mammoth
Cave.
[Illustration: In Cave Costume]
Oval depressions abound, styled “sink-holes,” because through them the
surface water sinks out of sight. So numerous are they that one might
traverse the cave-region on horseback all day long and not cross an open
stream; all the rainwater being drained through them to underground
gathering-beds, to re-appear in such cave-fed streams as Green River.
The Short-line Railway from Glasgow Junction to Mammoth Cave passes a
number of remarkably large sink-holes, one of the widest being “Eden
Valley,” covering two thousand acres, with no inlet or outlet except
through pits that are conjectured to lead to the Colossal and the
Mammoth caves.
On the authority of the late Professor Shaler it is said that there are
four thousand sink-holes and five hundred known caverns in Edmondson
County alone. In this little hand-book we can not be expected to give a
list of them. In the vicinity of Mammoth Cave are several that have
celebrity, and would amply reward the attention of a visitor. Among them
may be mentioned Ganter, Diamond, Procter, Salt, and White caves. The
last two belong to the Mammoth Cave estate, and are occasionally visited
by tourists. The Salt Cave is remarkable for prehistoric relics, and the
White Cave for its stalactites. Dixon Cave also is noteworthy as having
probably been the original mouth of Mammoth Cave. It is an immense
chamber, fifteen hundred feet long, from sixty to eighty feet wide, and
from eighty to one hundred and twenty-five feet high, and was once
worked for saltpeter. The Colossal Cavern, belonging to the Louisville
and Nashville Railroad, is but a mile and a half distant, and is noted
for its magnificence.
Thus far the woodman’s axe has spared the grand old forest trees on the
estate, except as needed for firewood, and many delightful rambles are
to be had among them. Game used to abound, and still rewards the
skillful hunter, and Green River abounds in fish.