Great Onyx Lantern Tour
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Duration: 2¼ hours
Walking Distance: 1 mile, round trip
Sells Out at: 38 visitors
Restroom Available? No
Description: Learn the legends and rumors of early community life as you travel by bus to Great Onyx Cave, a privately owned and operated cave until the 1960’s. Discover how Great Onyx survived the Cave Wars and emerged as one of the most pristine show caves in the region. Exploring this geologic beauty by lantern light offers a different perspective to the multitudes of dripstone, gypsum, and helictite formations. Encounter evidence of cave life from past and present.
Landmarks Seen: Flint Ridge Road (surface drive); Great Onyx Cave entrance; several rooms of formations, including "The Nativity," large dry passage; gypsum
Elevation Change: approximately 30'
Number of Stairs: 40
Steep Hill Climbs? No
Restrictions: No flash photography; general restrictions apply
Special Notice: This cave is not known to be connected to the greater Mammoth Cave System.
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Great Onyx Cave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Great Onyx Cave is a cave located in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, United States. The National Park Service offers a commercial tour of the cave[1].
Discovery
Great Onyx Cave was discovered in 1915 by Edmund Turner. According to one story, Turner made a proposition to Flint Ridge landowner L. P. Edwards, knowing through his cave explorations that there was a cave under Edwards' land. Turner asked Edwards if he could have a share in the cave's ownership if he showed Edwards where to dig. Edwards agreed, and the resulting cave was named Great Onyx Cave because of its cave onyx formations. Turner continued to explore the cave while Edwards rushed to commercialize it. Shortly thereafter, when Turner died (probably of pneumonia), Edwards claimed that he discovered the cave[2].
History
The owners of Great Onyx Cave refused to sell their land when the federal government was purchasing property for Mammoth Cave National Park during the 1930s. When the National Park was established in 1941, Great Onyx Cave remained a privately-held "island" within the Park's borders[3]. The cave was finally sold to the National Park Service and became a part of the National Park in January 1961[4].
The Great Onyx Case was also the subject of litigation that reached Kentucky's high courts in 1929 (232 Ky. 791, 24 S.W.2d 619). Edwards was sued by a neighboring landowner (Lee) who alleged that the cave might run underneath his property.
Lack of connection
Great Onyx Cave is unusual in that it has not yet been connected to nearby Mammoth Cave;[1] it is the only major Flint Ridge cave which has yet to be connected with the Flint Ridge Cave System,[2] despite exploration efforts.[5] In fact, passages in the Flint Ridge Cave System pass beneath surveyed passages in Great Onyx Cave.[6] Rocks and sand were piled against the walls of the cave to make trails when the cave was commercialized, possibly blocking off passages which might connect to Mammoth Cave.[7] Legend has it that this was the revenge of Turner, who was never able to profit from his discovery of Great Onyx Cave, against Edwards.[2]
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