Craighead Caverns is an extensive cave system located in Sweetwater, Tennessee. It is most well known for containing the United States’ largest and World’s second largest underground lake, The Lost Sea. In addition to the lake, the caverns contain an abundance of crystal clusters called anthodites, stalactites, stalagmites and a waterfall.Tourists and caving enthusiasts have the opportunity to do just that at the Lost Sea. Better known to geologists as Craighead Caverns, the extensive cave system is located between Sweetwater and Madisonville.The caves have probably been in use for centuries. Artifacts found about a mile deep into the cave indicate it was most likely used by the Cherokees as a council chamber.Early settlers used the cavern’s 58 degree temperature to their advantage by storing vegetables there. During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers used saltpeter mined from the cave to make gunpowder. Other would-be entrepreneurs and rabble-rousers employed the cave for brewing moonshine, hosting cockfights and farming mushrooms.
A trip through the Lost Sea starts with a guided tour. Visitors will walk the underground passageways while a tour guide recounts the cave’s history and its geological development. Especially impressive are the anthocites, better known as cave flowers. These clusters of radiating aragonite crystals are rare; about half of the world’s known specimens are found here in the cave.You’ll encounter the Lost Sea itself at the bottom of the cave. The largest underground lake in the country, the 800 foot long by 220 foot wide by 60 foot deep body of water is located 140 feet below the ground. The lake was discovered in 1905 by a teenager named Ben Sands, who crawled through a mud corridor to find a room half-filled with water. Glass-bottom boats now take tourists out onto the lake, which is filled with rainbow trout of tremendous size.
Ben Sands’ Discovery
Throughout the early history there were consistent rumors of a large underground lake somewhere deep within the cave, but it was not actually discovered until 1905. In that year a 13-year-old boy named Ben Sands wiggled through the tiny, muddy opening 300 feet underground and found himself in a huge room half filled with water. The room was so large that his light was swallowed up by the darkness long before reaching the far wall or the ceiling. For the rest of his life Sands delighted in describing how he threw mudballs as far as he could into the blackness and heard nothing but splashes in every direction.The full extent of the Lost Sea is still not known despite the efforts of teams of divers armed with modern exploration equipment USA travel destinations. The visible portion of the lake is 800 feet long by 220 feet wide. Glass-bottomed boats powered by electric motors carry visitors onto the lake, which is stocked with some of the largest Rainbow trout in North America. Fishing, incidentally, is not permitted. Beneath the calm waters of the four-and-a-half acre lake divers have discovered an even larger series of rooms completely filled with water. More than 13 acres of water have been mapped so far and still no end to the lake has been found. One diver ventured into the water-filled rooms with a sonar device. Hugging the wall to assure his ability to find his way back, he took soundings in all directions and found nothing but more water.
The Beginning of The Lost Sea Adventure
In 1915 the idea of developing the cave for the public was conceived. A dance floor was installed in one of the large upper rooms. Cockfights were another frequent activity in the cave. Meanwhile, other portions of the vast system were being utilized by moonshiners to produce that famous brew for which the mountains are famous.The fascinating history of Craighead Caverns provides plenty of spice for tour guides as they lead groups on the hike through the immense rooms leading to the Lost Sea in the deepest reaches of the cave. Along the way visitors are treated to a wide variety of interesting formations including several displays of rare crystalline structures called “anthodites.” These fragile, spiky clusters commonly known as “cave flowers” are found in only a few of the world’s caves. Their abundance in Craighead Caverns led the United States Department of the Interior to designate the Lost Sea as a Registered National Landmark, an honor the Lost Sea shares with such unique geological regions as the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina and the Yosemite National Park in California.The Lost Sea is a Awesome Place For Vacations.