For generations, enterprising people in the southern Appalachians have
turned the region's extensive network of caves into a strange,
fascinating genre of tourist attraction. Visitors pay admission to take
a tour deep underground, learning a little about history and geology
while puzzling over lit-up rock formations said to resemble anything
from Niagara Falls to the Capitol dome. Then off go the lights,
enveloping the travelers in total darkness--until the guide flips them
back on and welcomes folks back into the safety of the inevitable gift
shop. Show caves, as Douglas Reichert Powell explains in Endless
Caverns, are at once predictable and astonishing, ancient and modern,
eerie and sentimental. Their story sparks memories of a fleeting cool
moment deep underground during a hot summer vacation, capturing in
microcosm the history and culture of a region where a deeply rooted
sense of place collides with constant change.
Reichert Powell takes readers along on his journey through the past and
present of Appalachia's show caves, highlighting the characters who have
owned and operated them, the ways the attractions have developed and
changed over the years, and the odd intrigue that still leads people to
buy their ticket and head underground. Tourist tastes may shift as
interstates whisk travelers past the backroads and on to trendier
destinations, but the show cave--like Appalachia itself--endures.
