HISTORY CORNER

NICKAJACK CAVE IS HOME TO BATS AND HISTORY

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

Having spent much of the summer for nearly 60 years at the Monteagle Sunday School Assembly, it is hard to believe that until this summer, I had never seen Nickajack Cave in nearby Marion County, Tenn.

The cave is one of the most famous caverns in the state and likely has the largest entrance of any cave in the Eastern United States. The entrance is 140 feet wide and 50 feet high. To reach the cave from the west, turn off I-24 at the Kimball/ South Pittsburg exit and drive to South Pittsburg, a short distance. Just as you enter the town, turn left and cross the Tennessee River on the spectacular bridge. Soon you will rive through the unincorporated town of New Hope, which some people call “No Hope.” There will be signs for the TVA’s Nickajack Dam and Nickajack Cave, less than a mile upstream from the dam. At the cave parking area, you will find a wooden walkway that will take you approximately 1/3 of a mile nearly to the cave entrance, which is under water from the dam on the Tennessee River.

Before Nickajack Dam was built, local people drove automobiles a short distance in the cave. Today, there is a barrier across the entrance to keep people out. The top half of the entrance is open to allow bats to enter and depart. While the cave entrance is in Marion County, Tenn., the cave, which is 3,500 feet long, actually extends into Alabama and probably into Georgia.

A short distance from the entrance, the cave is nearly 200 feet wide with a mud floor. There are broken rocks on either side and a sizable stream flows through the middle. In a short distance, the cave narrows considerably and it extends southwest for 2,100 feet to a large room 300’ long, 90’ high, and 125 feet wide. There are many broken rocks and the stream flows through the room. Beyond the great room, the cave forks. One branch, 325 feet long, extends southwest into Jackson County, Ala. It features several side branches, mostly crawl space. The other fork extends southeast following the stream for 50 yards in a dry sandy passage 50 ‘wide and 8’ high. This passage runs 850’ into the bat room, a low chamber 50’wide and 90‘ long. Beyond the bat room, there is a crawlway 8’ wide, 16 inches high and 210‘ long. It leads to the final room in the cave, a chamber 35’ high, 40’ wide and 100’ long. In this chamber there is a huge flowstone formation, known as “Mr. Big.” It is 60’ high and 75‘ in diameter. At this point, you may be in Dade County, Ga.

I became interested in Nickajack Cave because it supposedly was named for an African American, whom the Chickamauga Indians captured at Clover Bottom. At Clover Bottom, on the Stones River, Native Americans, in the fall of 1780, ambushed and killed a number of Cumberland River settlers, who included Donelsons and Gowers, who had gone up the river in canoes to harvest some corn and cotton.

Native Americans used Nickajack Cave as a refuge. During the Civil War, it was mined by the Confederates for saltpeter and, for this reason, was shelled by federal gunboats on the Tennessee River.