On September 9, 1972, spelunkers exploring Kentucky's Mammoth Cave system made an incredible discovery. While plumbing the darkest recesses of the nearby Flint Ridge Cave system, then the longest known cave in the world, the group suddenly spotted a well-groomed tourist trail that belonged to Mammoth Cave. The spelunkers quickly realized that the two cave systems were actually one, making Mammoth Cave the longest cave in the world. (The world's second-longest cave, Sistema Ox Bel Ha in Quintana Roo, Mexico, is around 150 miles shorter.) With the discovery, what was once simply one of America's oldest tourist attractions became one of the world's grandest caves.
This historic revelation was the culmination of thousands of years of human exploration of the cave system. The first peoples to enter the cave were Native Americans, who explored roughly 19 miles of its interior some 5,000 years ago. Tribes used the cave for shelter, and the discovery of mummified remains suggests they also found the caves sacred in some way. In the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War, an enslaved cave guide named Stephen Bishop extended the cave's known length while also creating its first map. Entire families of explorers traversed the caves leading up to the 1930s, until Mammoth Cave became a national park in 1941. With around half a million visitors every year, Mammoth Cave continues to inspire awe just as it did many thousands of years ago.
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