Last updated: February 27, 2024
Place
Gap Cave
NPS
Around 350 million years ago, the area around the Cumberland Gap was covered by a warn, shallow, equatorial sea. Over millions of years the water began to recede causing erosion in the limestone rock. This chemical weather caused by carbonic acid, which is formed as the carbon dioxide interacts with the rock. This erosion created the formations that many people see in the cave today.
It remains unknown when the earliest humans discovered cave. The indigenous people of the area may have entered the cave, used its resources, and perhaps lived in the entrance. In 1750, explorer Thomas Walker wrote about the cave, naming it Gap Cave. During the War of 1812, many people mined the cave for its saltpeter to use as gunpowder. Civil War soldiers entered the cave and wrote their names on the cave.
By the late 1800s, locals began using the cave as a tourist attraction. Local landowner Major Cockrill named it King Solomon's Cave, writing with electric lights and conducting commercial tours. In the 1920s, Lincoln Memorial University bought the cave, renaming it Cudjo's Cave after a popular novel by James T. Trowbridge. For the next seventy years, they continued these tours until they sold the cave to the National Park Service. Today, you can still go on a cave tour and can learn about it here.
The cave is filled with many diverse organisms, including bats, cave salamanders, cave crickets, and packs rats. Beyond just life, Gap cave continues to grow, being a wet cave, its formations continue to form. During a tour, you will see stalactites, stalagmite, and other formations throughout the cave.
It remains unknown when the earliest humans discovered cave. The indigenous people of the area may have entered the cave, used its resources, and perhaps lived in the entrance. In 1750, explorer Thomas Walker wrote about the cave, naming it Gap Cave. During the War of 1812, many people mined the cave for its saltpeter to use as gunpowder. Civil War soldiers entered the cave and wrote their names on the cave.
By the late 1800s, locals began using the cave as a tourist attraction. Local landowner Major Cockrill named it King Solomon's Cave, writing with electric lights and conducting commercial tours. In the 1920s, Lincoln Memorial University bought the cave, renaming it Cudjo's Cave after a popular novel by James T. Trowbridge. For the next seventy years, they continued these tours until they sold the cave to the National Park Service. Today, you can still go on a cave tour and can learn about it here.
The cave is filled with many diverse organisms, including bats, cave salamanders, cave crickets, and packs rats. Beyond just life, Gap cave continues to grow, being a wet cave, its formations continue to form. During a tour, you will see stalactites, stalagmite, and other formations throughout the cave.