Cascade Caverns is a historically, geologically, and biologically important limestone solutional cave south of
Boerne, Texas
Boerne ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kendall County, Texas, in the Texas Hill Country. Boerne is known for its German-Texan history, named in honor of German author and satirist Ludwig Börne by the German Founders of the town. The pop ...
, United States, on 226 Cascade Caverns Road, in
Kendall County. It has been commercially operated as a
show cave and open for public tours since 1932. Informal tours were run as far back as 1875, when Dr. Benjamin Hester owned the cave property. The cave was known by the native
Lipan Apache people
Lipan Apache are a band of Apache, a Southern Athabaskan Indigenous people, who have lived in the Southwest and Southern Plains for centuries. At the time of European and African contact, they lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, a ...
who lived in the area prior to 1800.
History
Cascade Caverns is part of the
Glen Rose Formation
The Glen Rose Formation is a shallow marine to shoreline geological formation from the lower Cretaceous period exposed over a large area from South Central to North Central Texas. The formation is most widely known for the dinosaur footprints ...
, a shallow marine to shoreline geological formation from the
Lower Cretaceous
Lower may refer to:
*Lower (surname)
*Lower Township, New Jersey
*Lower Receiver (firearms)
*Lower Wick
Lower Wick is a small hamlet located in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated about five miles south west of Dursley, eig ...
period. This formation has been exposed in a large area beginning in South-central Texas, running north through the
Texas Hill Country, ending up in North-central Texas.
The cave has been open to the environment for many tens of thousands of years, as evidenced by prehistoric animal finds and Lipan Apache artifacts from the 1700s. In the mid-19th century, various legends existed about a hermit who lived on the ledge at the entrance to the cave. In 1878,
August Siemering, one of the co-founders of the ''San Antonio Express News'', wrote the book ''Ein Verfehltes Leben'' (''A Stolen Life, or A Wasted Life'') about a hermit who lived in the cave. The book was later translated into English in 1932, ''The Hermit of the Cavern'' by May E. Francis, a University of Texas (t. u.) professor.
A cave in the area was also mentioned in the book ''The Boy Captives'' by Clinton L. Smith about two local boys who were abducted by Comanche and Lipan Indians on February 26, 1871. They spent several years living with the Indians until they were finally returned to their family. The cave may be Cascade Caverns or any of the other caves in the Cibolo Creek area.
The cave was first commercially opened in 1932 and operated until about 1941. Alfred and Edith Gray were the original landowners when the cave was first opened. The cave was closed during WWII because most of the men were away fighting in Europe and strict gas rationing limited travel. During the time of closure, the cave's artifact collection was looted from the gift shop. Business was resumed in the late 1940s. Cascade Caverns had been originally known as Hester's Cave, named after a late 19th-century landowner. It became most famous as a result of Frank Nicholson's publication of cave explorations.
Frank Nicholson (formerly of Carlsbad Caverns) was the first person in modern times to explore the cave all the way to the Cathedral Room. Several other people helped to explore the main cave along with other caves in the area, including Bernard Cartwright and his brother Dan. Bernard was married to Mary Rose (née Kronkosky), who said that Edith Gray and she and their children would worry and wait for the cave explorers to come back out into the light of day.
The exploration in 1931 required getting past the Lake Room which was a
sump
A sump is a low space that collects often undesirable liquids such as water or chemicals. A sump can also be an infiltration basin used to manage surface runoff water and recharge underground aquifers. Sump can also refer to an area in a cave ...
. According to a newspaper article from November 1931 in the ''San Antonio Express News'', they had some waterproof molasses buckets that they put their lights in. Also, a legend holds that they put flashlights in mason jars.
The cave tour business changed hands many times over the years. In the 1930s, a flag-stop on the San Antonio-Boerne SA&AP train line ran by the cave about from the entrance. The current gift shop was originally a dance hall next to a kitchen. The
Menger Hotel
The Menger Hotel is a historic hotel located in downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA, on the site of the Battle of the Alamo.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 as a contributing building in the Alamo Plaza Historic Dis ...
ran a restaurant near the cave entrance when the cave initially opened as a commercial endeavor in 1932. At one time, a toy train from
Joske's
Joske's, founded by German immigrant Julius Joske in 1867, was a department store chain originally based in San Antonio, Texas. In December 1928, Hahn Department Stores acquired the company along with the Titche-Goettinger department store of Dal ...
department store ran around the grounds. The train still exists and is in storage but is no longer used. At one time, a swimming pool, a movie theater, and a gravity house were nearby.
In 1967, artist Paul "P.B." Kime, who had a studio at Cascade Caverns in the 1960s, created a parade float that was used in the first Boerne Berges Fest in 1967 and the first Weihnacht's Parade in 1987.
In April 1984, a Texas historical marker was placed near the cave to commemorate the natural landmark.
In 1993,
the Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...
filmed a movie called ''
Father Hood'' starring
Patrick Swayze
Patrick Wayne Swayze (; August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009) was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for playing distinctive lead roles, particularly romantic, tough, and comedic characters. He was also known for his media image and ...
. They filmed for several weeks both inside the cave and out on the grounds. Several minutes of footage were used in the final version of the film. A prop in the film was a giant ''T. rex'', which is still located near the gift shop today.
The original gift shop (constructed in 1932) was badly damaged, and the Alfred and Edith Gray Theater (constructed in 1984) was destroyed, in a flood in 2002.
In 2005, Cascade Caverns was the scene of a murder when Dario Acevedo, a worker at the park, shot and killed fellow worker Jeffrey Donofrio. Acevedo was sentenced to life in prison.
Description
Cascade Caverns maintains a temperature range of all year round. A 45- to 60-minute commercial tour passes through of
flowstone
Flowstones are sheetlike deposits of calcite or other carbonate minerals, formed where water flows down the walls or along the floors of a cave. They are typically found in "solution caves", in limestone, where they are the most common speleoth ...
corridors and winding chambers, which leads below the surface and into the Cathedral Room.
Below the Cathedral Room is another cave that is only accessible through a drainpipe that was installed in the early 1960s after the natural passage collapsed during a flood. Adventure Tours to the lower cave are given by expert cavers by reservation only. The sump at the bottom of the Lower Cave is about below the surface.
The cave was host to Texas’ only cavern with a natural interior waterfall. Originally, seven waterfalls were in the cavern. A very bad drought in the 1950s caused all of the waterfalls to dry up, except for the one in the Cathedral Room. It would either not run or unexpectedly flood the room, so in the 1960s, the original source of the water was sealed up and an artificial waterfall was installed to mimic the original one without the danger of flooding. This very feature, the cascading waterfall, had earned the cave its name. The cave is 95% alive and water droplets persistently fall upon the cave formations. The primary formations found in the cave are
soda straw
A soda straw (or simply straw) is a speleothem in the form of a hollow mineral cylinder (geometry), cylindrical tube. They are also known as tubular stalactites. Soda straws grow in places where water leaches slowly through cracks in rock, such a ...
s. Most are quite short because of frequent flooding.
The cave is home to unusual insects, including cave crickets (
Rhaphidophoridae
The orthopteran family Rhaphidophoridae of the suborder Ensifera has a worldwide distribution. Common names for these insects include cave wētā, cave crickets, camelback crickets, camel crickets, Hogan bugs, spider crickets (sometimes shorten ...
) and cave beetles (''
Rhadine persephone
The Tooth Cave ground beetle, ''Rhadine persephone'', is an Endemism, endemic beetle that lives only in karst caves in Texas. They are arthropods of the family Carabidae. The United States government considers these beetles endangered because ...
''). Also to be found in the cave are microscopic creatures called ''
Stygobromus dejectus
''Stygobromus dejectus'', commonly called Cascade Cave amphipod, is a troglomorphic species of amphipod in family Crangonyctidae. It is endemic to Texas in the United States.
See also
* Cascade Caverns
Cascade Caverns is a historically, geol ...
'', the Cascade Caverns amphipod. Also, amphibians, crawfish, reptiles,
tricolored bat
The tricolored bat (''Perimyotis subflavus'') is a species of microbat native to eastern North America. Formerly known as the eastern pipistrelle, based on the incorrect belief that it was closely related to European '' Pipistrellus'' species, t ...
s (''
Pipistrellus
''Pipistrellus'' is a genus of bats in the family Vespertilionidae and subfamily Vespertilioninae. The name of the genus is derived from the Italian word , meaning "bat" (from Latin "bird of evening, bat").
The size of the genus has been cons ...
''), and the rare
Cascade Caverns neotenic salamanders live in the cave. Known as the Cascade Caverns salamander or Kendall County salamander, it can only be found in Cascade Caverns and another regional cave, the
Cave Without a Name
The Cave Without a Name is a limestone solutional cave in the Texas Hill Country region of Central Texas. It is a National Natural Landmark.
The cave is located from downtown San Antonio, and 10 miles northeast of Boerne off FM 474 and Kreutz ...
.
Mastodon
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...
remains, saber-toothed cat bones (''
Smilodon
''Smilodon'' is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely rela ...
''),
American bison
The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply Bubalina, buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongs ...
bones, and other animal parts have been found in the cave. Native American artifacts, human remains, and even a pistol were reportedly found during excavation of the front room. Most of these items disappeared during the closure in the early 1940s.
Tours are run year-round, with only rare closings due to flooding. A dam protects the cave from unexpected flash flooding. Quite a few floods have happened throughout the years that have affected the cave. Naturally, the cave formed with the help of flooding, with water helping to carve out the rock. During the exploration in 1931, white fish were reported to be in the cave. After the natural flow of water was inhibited with the dam, these fish are no longer seen.
Flooding at Cascade Caverns
Photo gallery
File:View from Cascade Caverns Dam.jpg, View from Cascade Caverns Dam
File:CaveMouthCascadeCaverns.jpg, Cave mouth at Cascade Caverns
File:BatTricolorCascadeCaverns.jpg, Cascade Caverns tricolor (''Pipistrellus'') bat
File:GiantMolarCascadeCaverns.jpg, The Giant Molar - a cross between a stalactite and a shield formation
File:CathedralRoomCascadeCavernsView.jpg, View from Storm Canyon of the Cathedral Room
References
External links
Official Cascade Caverns website
{{coord, 29.764, -98.681, type:landmark_region:US-TX, display=title
Caves of Texas
Limestone caves
Landforms of Kendall County, Texas
Show caves in the United States
Texas Hill Country
Tourist attractions in Kendall County, Texas