From the moment the first human set foot at Lost River, the cave and valley have been used as a safe and plentiful source of food, water and shelter.  Evidence of such use has been uncovered by archaeologists at Western Kentucky University.  The cultural artifacts discovered by these experts tell the story of Kentucky’s earliest inhabitants and Lost River’s place in their lives.

Ten thousand years ago, the Kentucky climate was cooler and wetter—supporting a landscape of evergreen forest.  The Paleo  Indian Cultural Tradition, also known as“big game hunters,” roamed the forests in search of food and shelter.  These humans utilized Clovis spear points to bring down such animals as the giant ground sloth, the mammoth and the mastodon.  They were nomadic groups, moving between different camp sites seasonally.  Anthropologist Jack Schock of Western Kentucky University believes that these prehistoric Kentucky tribes camped at Lost River Cave in the winter, enjoying shelter from the cave as well as clean water from the blue hole.

One of the only Dalton points found in situ in southeastern Kentucky was discovered at Lost River by Dr. Schock!  This spear point, dated at around 8,000 years old, is a rare find, making Lost River stand out as a unique archaeological site for the Archaic Indian Cultural Tradition!  These native groups enjoyed a period of occupation from about 8,000 B.C. till around 1,000 B.C.  Their culture included more exploitation of  the environment than their predecessors. 

They manufactured bone tools and began to bury and cremate their dead.  These people still traveled in small, nomadic bands, but left behind an abundance of debris in campsites along rivers and streams throughout Kentucky.  Mussel shells, dirt, flint and bone are excavated from large “shell mounds” at the Green River.  The trash heaps of prehistoric inhabitants lend today’s archaeologists a hand in piecing together the lives and deaths of Early to Late Archaic groups.

Early Woodland Cultural Tradition lasted from 1000 B.C. till 1000 A.D.  The people of this period made clay pottery, copper jewelry, gourd vessels, and fiber sandals of pawpaw bark.  The bow and arrow were created to aid in hunting deer and other small animals.  They believed in a religion of shamanism.  The tribe’s shaman wore costumes of deerskin and used herbs and rattles to perform rituals that may have aided the tribe in hunting and healing matters.

The Role of Caves in Prehistory
Prehistoric people used the caves in the western region of Kentucky as shelter, ritual and burial sites, for mining minerals and for the purpose of exploration.  Humans have always been curious.  The natives who ventured into the area’s extensive underground passages were not only looking for items of use, but for answers to unknown questions about where the water and the tunnels resurfaced and what types of animals and formations resided in the depths.  There is little doubt that the groups who camped at Lost River explored its watery passages.

Mining of sulfate minerals from the cave ceilings and walls of Mammoth Cave, as well as quarrying for chert is well documented by archaeologists.  Minerals such as gypsum and mirabilite could be used as paint, for ritual and for their medicinal properties.  Lost River Cave has no deposits of such minerals, but there are nodules of chert found in the cave that may have been quarried and modified to make tools or weapons.

Much of Kentucky prehistory is preservedby the state’s unique karst topography. 

Older, drier caves provide excellent conditions for the preservation of fibers, wood, tools, fecal matter and even human bodies!  There are few decaying organisms and little weathering influences in older cave passages.  Mummies have been found north of Lost River in Mammoth Cave along with torches and woven sandals.  Lost River’s status as an active, wet cave means that most of the delicate artifacts that have been deposited inside its passageways over the years are probably destroyed or lost forever.  However, the cave entrance and areas along the valley bluffs yielded findings such as a shell used as a dipper, a stone pipe, spear and dart points and tools fashioned from deer bone. 

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Lost River’s Industrial History

The cave mills at Lost River Cave and the Louisville-Nashville Turnpike which passed over the cave are connections to the 19th century commercial and agricultural development of Warren County.  There are many conflicting reports on the construction of the first mill at Lost River Cave.  Some undocumented 20th century reports state that it was built in 1792 as a corn and saw mill.  Other accounts place the construction of the “first flour mill in Warren County” much later.  There seems to have been several mills with different operators and production goals throughout the 19th century.  The first of these structures sat inside the cave while later millers built their operations on top of the arched entrance to the cavern.

            Within three miles of Bowling Green is a mill situated in what the people term
a sink hole.  This is a remarkably large and deep cavity, into which a considerable
stream precipitates itself, and disappears under ground.  The road leading to
Nashville passes close to it; and while proceeding on what you imagine to be nearly a level surface you find yourself suddenly upon the brink of a frightful  precipice, from which you might jump down upon the roof of the mill below.

-William Blane, An Excursion Through the United States and Canada,
1822-1823

There is definitely enough factual documentation to show that the mill was in operation by 1823 and continued until at least 1847 when it was maintained as a grist mill and wool carding machine by a Mr. Shanks.  This mill was built directly in the stream under the rock arch of the cave entrance.

            [the] water [is] confined just above a wall of
            masonry being built across with
            narrow gates or issues for the water to pass through.

-Samuel Hibbs, 8th Kansas Infantry camped at Lost River in 1862

In the mid-1870s, John L. Row built a stone dam in the stream near the cave entrance, drilled through the 42 feet of bedrock in the arched ceiling of the cave entrance and constructed a three-story high mill above the cave.  A shaft ran from the mill to an “undershot wheel” in the dam raceway.  He operated his mill as a distillery and flour mill until 1889 when it was purchased by James Skaggs. The bill of sale stated:

Notice:  Cave Mill For Sale.  On Saturday, July 20, 1889, at 8 o’clock p.m.,
 on the premises, I will offer for sale to the highest bidder my large residence,
20 acres of land, mill and distillery, situated three miles south of Bowling
Green on the Bowling Green and Nashville pike.  The flouring mill is first-
class in every particular and will make four-barrels of as good flour as any
mill in the county per hour, and is well located for a large share of custom
work.  The distillery is the best brandy distillery in the county and will make
 six barrels per day.  A never-failing spring is on the premises which runs all
 of the machinery one-third of the year.  I will also sell my interest in the old
L. & N. turnpike.  Terms made known on day of sale.  Jno L. Row
-John L. Row, 1889

The last mill at Lost River, owned by Robert Crump, was destroyed by fire in 1915.  An industrial history lasting over a century ended with the burning of the old mill.  Today, the hole John Row drilled in the cave ceiling, a reconstructed damn from the night club era and a large waterwheel at the entrance to the park are used by interpreters to explain the importance of economic and industrial development for early owners of the cave and valley.
…on the Nashville Road we visited Cave Mill…A solid arch of rock about 50 ft. in thickness forming the roof.  Under this arch an enterprising  Kentuckian has located his grist mill, and the noise of the falling water, and the clattering of the cog wheels by giving life and animation, increasesthe picturesque effects.
                                                                                                                           -                                                                                                                          Thomas Kite, Journal of a Trip Through South Central Kentucky,  1847

Sketch of the three-story mill situated atop LostRiverCave.

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When brother turned against brother and the United States found itself ripped apart during the Civil War, the state of Kentucky adopted a policy of neutrality.  However, Kentucky’s position as a border state made this an unrealistic goal.  Both the Union and Confederate forces ignored Kentucky’s doctrine in an effort to secure a strategic   
advantage.  In September of  1861, Confederate troops began marching into the state.  They reached Bowling Green, Kentucky on September 16th.  One of the first young men to reach the fair town decided to take down the Union flag that was flying over the depot and replace it with a Confederate banner.  A rumor followed that the boy then fell from the roof of the depot, broke both legs and died within days!  If this is true, then it seems that the Confederate occupation of Bowling Green was doomed from the start.

As an occupied territory, Bowling Green was re-shaped to benefit the demands of the army stationed there.  The unwelcome southern troops cut down trees that would obstruct their view of the hills; they destroyed bridges to the north to keep Union forces at bay; and they transformed a majority of the city’s surrounding hills into Confederate forts.  The town was tightly secured against the Federalist army, giving Bowling Green the title “Gibraltar of the Confederacy” and the status of being Kentucky’s Confederate capital. 

During the early months of the rebel occupation, the soldiers enjoyed the scenic Lost River Cave & Valley as a camp and training ground.  They spent time exploring cave passages and making good use of the valley’s plentiful resources.  It is even said that the army used the cave as a storage area and supply depot!  Unfortunately for the soldiers, their time in Bowling Green soon became a difficult and deadly ordeal.

It will never be known if the southern fortifications at Bowling Green could have withstood the northern advance, for the Rebel forces in south-central Kentucky found themselves facing an un-winnable battle within their own ranks!  With the onset of a harsh Kentucky winter in 1861, many soldiers from the warmer southern states found themselves fighting extreme temperatures and rampant disease.  Measles, typhoid and pneumonia nearly wiped out the army of 20,000 stationed in the southern part of the state.  The bodies of many troops who fell victim to these outbreaks were buried in Bowling Green’s Fairview Cemetery, never to be returned to their families.  On Valentine’s Day in 1862, the rebels left Bowling Green for good.  Despite threats from the Confederate commander, General Hardee, that any person who set fire to buildings would be “shot without trial,” the train depot and areas of the downtown were torched by retreating troops.










Unaware that Bowling Green’s southern contingent had been decimated by disease; Union troops advanced from the north side of Barren River in the early months of 1862 and mistakenly began shelling the town.  They had no idea that the Confederates were long gone!  Local residents were excited when the northern soldiers finally marched into town, but soon discovered that they were faced with another invading force that had no intention of respecting private property. 

Nearly 40,000 Union soldiers camped around Lost River Cave & Valley from 1862-1865.  An oasis in difficult times, the cave and river provided a cool respite from blistering heat in the summers.  The men enjoyed the cave just as the Confederate troops had in their down time—crawling through the underground network of passages and writing their names, ranks and companies on the ceilings and walls of the cave.  They even fired their guns inside the cave passages to hear the echoes, leaving behind their bullets for historic archaeologists to find more than a century later!   

The departure of the Union army in 1865 was met with relief bymany.Though the Confederates had resided in Bowling Green for only a short while, the Union army had considered the town to be       full of “rebels.”  After three years of occupation by Federal forces, most residents—never devoted to the Confederacy—still refused to call themselves Unionists!

To commemorate the men and women of the Civil War era and the trials they faced, Lost River Cave & Valley holds an annual Civil War Living History Event every July.  Visitors can explore Civil War encampments, witness skirmishes and battles and enjoy demonstrations of period goods and services.  It is a chance to experience history in an interactive and educational setting!

 

A Civil War reenactor fires his rifle for the crowd at LostRiver’s Civil War Living History Event.



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The scenic Lost River Cave & Valley has been used by Kentucky’s inhabitants for thousands of years and in a variety of ways.  Though shelter and water have always been high on the list of reasons for living and working around the valley, a very impressive entrepreneur came up with a new and exciting use for the property in the 1930s:  A nightclub, complete with stage, bar and dance floor was built inside the mouth of Lost River Cave! 

Bowling Green, Kentucky—like most areas of the United States—found itself in turmoil during the economic strife of the 1930s.  What better way to relieve the pressure of The Great Depression than to cool off in Lost River’s breezy cave entrance? One of the largest cave entrances east of the Mississippi River,  Lost River Cave was an ideal spot for the construction of a unique wining, dining and dancing experience.  Locals and tourists alike flocked to the “Cavern Nite Club” to enjoy an evening of fun and freedom far beneath the hectic streets of the city.  Church picnics, weddings and high school proms were held at the night club from 1934 through the early 1960s and some of the greatest swing band acts of the time belted out tunes from the bandstand!  

The Cavern Nite Club served locals as well as the droves of tourists traveling the Dixie Highway from 1933 until the late 1950s.  As an added bonus, guests were treated to guided walking tours inside the cave.  These tours were especially popular because of a local legend that the famous outlaw Jesse James hid out in the cave depths to escape the law after robbing the Southern Deposit Bank in Russellville, Kentucky.  


In the late 1950s, the night club era was at an end.  The construction of I-65 re-routed traffic away from the Dixie Highway and from the Lost River Cave.  The cool, natural breeze in the cave entrance was less enticing to a generation that had air conditioning in their homes and Elvis Presley’s new Rockabilly style was sweeping the United States and replacing swing music in the hearts ofAmerica.  The Cavern Nite Club closed its doors and the Lost River Cave entered a time of neglect and abuse.For more than 30 years, Bowling Green forgot about its historic and natural gem located in the heart of the city.  By the 1980s, Lost River Cave & Valley had become a dumping site.  In an effort to return the site to its former glory, the Friends of the Lost River formed in 1990.  Over the years, these efforts have been a great success, but the organization can not continue the mission alone!

                                                                                          

As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the Friends of Lost River strive to preserve and protect the Lost River Cave, Valley and surrounding area.  Without the benefit of state or federal money, the Friends have developed innovative ways to maintain the 68-acre park.  The proceeds from the Underground Boat Tour and Gift Shop sales are used for the preservation of the site.  In addition to these funds, the non-profit offers the Cave Ballroom as a venue for rental! 

The spirit of long ago dances and romances lives on in the legends and stories told along the Historic Riverwalk.  Visitors are encouraged to explore the site heralded by Billboard Magazine in the 1930s as one of the only air-conditioned night clubs in the country.  Folks can still view the “Cavern Nite Club’s” original bar as well as the bandstand that showcased great acts like Dinah Shore and the NBC Orchestra!





Lost River’s tradition of dance and frivolity is revived in the many weddings, receptions, and banquets held in the restored Cave Ballroom.  The cave ballroom can be rented for a night of mystery and romance or visitors can opt to attend the Friends of Lost River’s annual fundraiser “Get Down in the Valley.”  While donations are welcomed at any time, the fundraising dance is a way to involve the local community and out-of-town guests in the restoration of the beautiful Cave & Valley.Visitors  dance their cares away to popular music, enjoy the sights and sounds of the gorgeous natural setting and relive the grandeur of the night club that once thrived beneath the Dixie Highway!

View looking out from the Cave Ballroom in LostRiverCave.