Mammoth Cave’s Gothic Avenue
For reviews of all Mammoth Cave National Park tours, how to get tickets, what to wear, and rules for the tours, see the Cave Tours web page here on National Park Planner. Keep in mind that not all tours are offered year-round, and the schedule of what tours are available changes often. Be sure to check the National Park Service’s official Cave Tours web page for the current schedule.
OVERVIEW
The Gothic Avenue Tour at Mammoth Cave National Park has been given since cave tours first began in 1816. It takes participants to a passageway within Mammoth Cave that is famous for its historical graffiti and a couple of unique calcite formations. Stalactites and stalagmites are created by very slow dripping water, and much of Mammoth Cave that is accessible on tours lacks such formations because it is capped by a layer of sandstone that keeps water out. This makes Gothic Avenue somewhat special, as it is one of the few places in the main cave where visitors can see calcite formations.
Many tours of Mammoth Cave have overlapping routes, some to the extent that they are complete duplicates of other tours. If you take the Grand Historic Tour, there is no need to take the Gothic Avenue Tour because the Grand Historic covers it in full. The Star Chamber Lantern Tour visits most of Gothic Avenue, but not all, plus it is done by lantern light so you can’t see as well. However, if you take the Star Chamber Lantern Tour, there is just not enough extra benefit to warrant taking the Gothic Avenue Tour as well. I do recommend taking a lantern tour while you are at park, so if you decide to take the Gothic Avenue Tour, choose one of the other lantern tours, the Great Onyx Lantern Tour or the Violet City Lantern Tour.
The Gothic Avenue Tour is not overly strenuous. It is a two-hour tour that involves walking a little less than two miles, and there are 170 stairs steps, most at the Historic Entrance to Mammoth Cave. Once inside, the tour covers level ground other than a small staircase that connects the main passageway to Gothic Avenue. The tour is open to ages 6 and up. Those under 16 years of age must be accompanied by someone 18 or older.
While the tour itself is not very strenuous, keep in mind that like all tours that enter Mammoth Cave through the Historic Entrance, the Gothic Avenue Tour starts off down a steep, .2-mile paved hill from the Visitor Center. It is even steeper on the way up, believe me. For a young person or those in great shape, the hill is probably inconsequential. But for those who are older, drastically overweight, or have problems walking up or down steep hills, it’s no picnic. At 59 years old, I dreaded the walk back up to the Visitor Center far more than anything inside the cave. There are benches along the path, and there is no shame in sitting down and resting. I will say that if you get to the bottom and realize that getting back up to the Visitor Center is going to be extremely difficult, you should not be going into the cave in the first place.
Steep path from the Visitor Center to the Historic Entrance of Mammoth Cave
TOUR HIGHLIGHTS
Saltpeter Mine
While the Gothic Avenue Tour doesn’t specifically stop at or talk about the Mammoth Cave saltpeter mining operation of the early 1800s, all tours that enter the cave through the Historic Entrance pass the remnants of mining equipment. Those on the Gothic Avenue Tour will be wondering about what they are seeing, so here is the scoop. Saltpeter (aka potassium nitrate) is used to make a variety of products, but in the early 1800s it was extremely important for the production of black powder. Output was ramped up once the War of 1812 started, and the mine owners made a lot of money. However, it was overproduced, and when the war ended in February 1815, prices for black powder fell from 97¢ per pound to 7¢, and the mines were shut down. This eventually led to the Mammoth Cave owners turning to tourism to make money. The earliest known cave tours started in 1816.
Potassium nitrate can be produced in a number of ways. One is by extracting calcium nitrate from bat guano (poop), which is commonly found in abundance in the dirt of a cave floor. To do this, the cave dirt is shoveled into large wooden vats. Water, which is brought down from the surface through wooden pipes, is added. After a week of soaking, a slurry forms, and this is pumped back to the surface where it is boiled until the nitrates crystalize and separate from the sludge. Materials high in potassium, such as wood ash or charcoal, are then mixed in with the nitrate to make saltpeter. In the early 1800s, most saltpeter mines shipped their product to the Dupont Company in Delaware where it was turned into gunpowder.
Remnants of the wooden vats and the pipes that once carried water between the surface and the cave floor are still standing inside Mammoth Cave. These artifacts are now over 200 years old, all preserved due to the low temperatures and low humidity of the cave.
Remnants of wooden water pipes used in the Mammoth Cave saltpeter mining operation
Remnants of wooden vats used in the Mammoth Cave saltpeter mining operation
Most of the work was done by slaves. A diorama of the saltpeter operation at Mammoth Cave is on display in the Visitor Center museum, and this accurately depicts the use of slave labor.
Diorama of a saltpeter mining operation on display inside the Mammoth Cave Visitor Center
Gothic Avenue
Not too far into the main passageway of Mammoth Cave is the staircase that leads to Gothic Avenue. The entrance is known as Booth’s Amphitheater, named after Edwin Booth, brother of Abraham Lincoln’s murderer, John Wilkes Booth. All of the Booth’s were famous actors, and supposedly Edwin recited a few passages from Hamlet at the Gothic Avenue entrance when egged on by the crowd during a visit in 1876.
Staircase between the main passage of Mammoth Cave and Gothic Avenue
Gothic Avenue gets its name from calcite formations that resemble Gothic architecture. However, its most interesting feature is its graffiti-covered ceilings. In the early to mid-1800s, tour guides, who were often slaves, had various ways of making money. One was to allow visitors to write their names on the ceiling of the cave. This was done by using tallow (animal-fat) candles that created a lot of black, greasy smoke. The candles were attached to long poles, and the people writing their names did so by creating a series of black dots. The earliest signatures on the ceilings or walls using the candle technique are from 1811. There is supposedly a signature scratched into a rock from 1798. It is estimated that there are at least 10,000 signatures in the cave.
Graffiti on the ceiling of Gothic Avenue in Mammoth Cave
Graffiti on the wall and ceiling of Gothic Avenue in Mammoth Cave
Because the candle wax would drip into the face of the person doing the writing when looking up at the ceiling, a mirror was placed at the person’s feet. Of course, if looking in a mirror, the writer had to create letters in reverse in order for the signature to be correct on the ceiling. Not everyone realized this, and there are more than a few signatures that are backwards. A slave guide who could not read or write might not have any idea that the person was creating letters backwards and would thus never say anything. Either that or he just didn’t care. Once the mistake was realized, the guide could sell the author another candle.
Backwards signature on the ceiling of Mammoth Cave’s Gothic Avenue
In 1888, signatures were outlawed in Mammoth Cave by a Kentucky state law. Defacing the cave was a $50 fine. Guides, of course, found other ways to make money. In addition to providing tours, they were responsible for creating the tour routes and clearing the rocks along the path. As the story goes, the guides started charging visitors to take the rocks and stack them into large piles to create what became known as monuments, effectively having guests pay them to do their work. Guests could write their names or anything else on the rocks. As word spread about building monuments, groups began coming to the cave with signs already made for the occasion. There are monuments to states, cities, colleges, fraternities and sororities, and individuals, and many of these still stand today. The largest, the Kentucky Monument, reaches the ceiling. At one time there was a monument for every state in the United States.
Monument for the state of Kentucky in Mammoth Cave’s Gothic Avenue
Gothic Avenue is a rather short passageway, and towards the end is one of its most famous calcite formations, the Bridal Alter. There have been at least a dozen weddings held here (none in modern times). The Bridal Alter is a completed formation, meaning that it is no longer growing.
Bridal Alter in Gothic Avenue, Mammoth Cave National Park
Not far from the Bridal Alter is an active formation that grows about one cubic inch every three to four hundred years, so water is still getting into this area through cracks in the sandstone caprock.
Stalactite formation in Mammoth Cave’s Gothic Avenue
One other famous formation in Gothic Avenue is what is known as a column: a stalactite and a stalagmite that grew together. Known as the Devil’s Armchair, the formation has a hole in the center that is big enough for a person to sit down in. In 1851, the world’s most famous opera singer, Jenny Lind, visited Mammoth Cave during a concert tour of the United States. She supposedly sat in the formation, and the name was quickly changed to Jenny Lind’s Armchair. The formation was also featured in an 1893 Pabst beer advertisement.
Jenny Lind’s Armchair in Mammoth Cave’s Gothic Avenue
Gothic Avenue is a dead end, so tour participants eventually turn around and head back the same way they came, exiting the cave via the Historic Entrance.
Visitors to Mammoth Cave exit via the Historic Entrance
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Last updated on October 11, 2024
