Throwback Thursday – 100 Years of Mammoth Onyx Cave Tours

If you are one of nature’s own, if you love the starlight of a winter’s evening, the witchery of yellow moonlight on the woodlands, nature will light her magic torch, and Mammoth Onyx Cave will be a fairyland of dreams,” wrote Leon Foster in 1922. Exactly a century ago, Mammoth Onyx Cave in Horse Cave opened for public tours.

Today, Mammoth Onyx is considered to be part of the Kentucky Down Under Adventure Zoo attraction offerings. The cave itself was discovered in 1799 by a 10-year-old girl named Martha Woodson. But it didn’t open for cave tours to the public until 100 years ago. 

Visitors can marvel at the onyx formations, with lots of stalagmites and stalactites. This is one of the things that makes the Mammoth Onyx tour different from many of the area’s other seven public cave tours. Not all of the caves have such beautiful formations to view, as many of the caves are no longer “living” with active water movement. 

Charles Richardson’s century-old take on the Mammoth Onyx Cave experience compared the cave to a nocturnal paradise. As an assistant geologist for the Kentucky Geological Survey, he referenced the onyx to be “Mexican onyx” or “Onyx marble,” noting the high polish, fine grained, banded, translucent and delicate colors. He believed every tourist who visited would indeed get their money’s worth of cave beauty. 

Cave tours are offered daily, done at a leisurely pace, and last about 30 minutes. Mammoth Onyx Cave is just a few miles from Horse Cave’s Main Street. Visitors can find out more about the cave on the Kentucky Down Under website. There are seven other public show caves offering tours across all of southern Kentucky, from Mammoth Cave National Park to Lost River Cave in Bowling Green.

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Throwback Thursday is brought to you by Hart County Tourism.