There is a small sandstone cave in Texas worth visiting once if you live within a 4 hour drive of it. The only reason cavers do not regularly visit it, is that it is about as remote as some of the caves in far west Texas.
My theory about the cave, is that a natural water flow about that of a garden hose found its way upward vertically from the aquifer through the path of least resistance in the substrate, which appears to be a compacted mixture of clay and sandstone. Only a wild guess would say that after a few thousand years, a path was created big enough for small mammals to enter, and voids developed, as natural erosion took place. My guess is that in the early formation of the cave about 10,000 years ago, the cave was longer, probably 400 feet of stomach-crawling size passage, with only the exit of the tiny subterrenean stream as a entry point for small mammals. Then about 5,000 years ago, where the spring entered the void at the back of the cave, a small room or walking size passage collapsed creating a 30 foot deep sinkhole ( which can be rappelled into ). Thereafter, the collapsed material was washed downstream by floods, eventually forming a through passage, but not walking size passage. Sometime more recently, the passage became big enough for humans to enter. But I bet it was just crawling size passage. Maybe native-Americans entered the cave 1,000 years ago, as it was the only natural shelter for 100's of miles. But they had an abundant supply of trees and fur, ( to make better housing that the wife would have prefered ) So I doubt the early native-Americans ever lived in it. Maybe 500 years ago, and Indian stumbled onto it and used it like a hunter's camp, or his private vacation spot. European and American settlers ( cotton farmers and loggers and later oil drillers ), may have entered the cave in the mid 1800's and scraped the walls either for marking they were there, or for curiosity. That digging and the natural erosional forces from floods ( tropical storms or hurricane remnants ) had to have enlarged the cave in some capacity. Some dates from the late 1800's, can be seen in the etchings, but so much vandalism, has destroyed most of that. I bet the heyday of caving activity and fun was in the 1910's. ( My ancestors lived about 23 miles by buggy from the cave from 1900 to the 1950's. I do not think they ever travelled far from home, so going here would have been a big road-trip. ) The cave is heavily vandalized with deep etchings, done with wooden or metal stick. And later spray paint, which actually doesn't stick for very long, or gets rubbed off by locals spelunking. I am really surprised the cave has not changed much. I first saw it in 1987, and would have bet it would have washed away by now, but most of it seems nearly identical. I think that any cavers who attend SFASU in Nacodoches, should make an effort to visit it and publish a trip report, or write an article for the Texas Caver. I have always wanted to bottle the water into a fancy bottle and sell it at caving conventions. I doubt the water is drinkable, but I would bet it can be purified to be as good as some other bottled water products. There were about 3 bats in the cave in 1987, but I do not ever remember seeing bats on other visits. But I think there are scars on the ceiling of bat roost. The bat history at this cave is limited to the years is had accesible passage to them, which I think is just recently on a geologic timescale. So, I am saying for the million years or so that bats lived in east Texas, they did not have this cave or any others to permanently shelter in. The NSS felt the cave was important enough to mention it in Bulletin # 10. ( see post from yesterday ) I do not know who would be the authority on the cave. Caver Roger Moore knows as much about it as anybody I know of, and may have caving pictures. The TSS has a pamphlet on the topic, by Gerald Atkinson. The last I heard, ( about 2 or 3 years ago ) the same owner owns it and lives up on a small hill near the cave. He would be in his late 70's now, I would think. I could not find him anywhere recently on the internet. Unfortunately, the cave is in the middle of the property, and one would have to purchase probably 50 acres of prime timber harvesting land in order to buy it from him. He uses the water from the cave to maintain a large nasty pond on his lake. The cave is marked with a cave-symbol on the USGS topo map, about 7 miles due south of the town of Center. David Locklear NSS # 27639 Ref: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Preserve-Protect-Gunnels-Cave/111719558859888 http://texasspeleologicalsurvey.org/publications/images/EastTexas.jpg
