Endless Caverns

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.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1880.

A travel guide with roadside history of Pennsylvania's nice commercial caves and other geological wonders.

This edition of the Slow Travels Series commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway construction. The segments of the parkway are separated into the Virginia and North Carolina sections. Also included are U.S. Highways 11, 50, 52, and 60 (Virginia), U.S. Highway 70 (North Carolina), and the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park. This guide is not intended to be a history of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but a guide to the history which lies along it and in the surrounding region.

Proceedings of the symposium held February 24 through 27, 1999, Charlottesville, Virginia