With Halloween just around the corner, students are making plans to visit Knoxville’s many haunted houses and corn mazes. Yet, one venue may top them all: the Haunted Cave at Cherokee Caverns. With some interesting scares and a unique setting, the Haunted Cave is worth the trip.
The cave itself was first home to American Indians, as seen by torch marks left on the cavern walls. Then, in 1854, local farmer Robert Crudington rediscovered the cave and bought it.
Over the next 110 years, the cave passed through many hands and went through several different names. Then in the late 1960s, Cherokee Cavern Restaurant was built above the cave. Jim Whidby, founder of the Haunted Cave, visited regularly.
“Back in the 70s, I was chairman of the caving club over in Oak Ridge and was part of the National Speleological Society, and I used to bring the club over here,” Whidby said.
However, shortly after, the restaurant burned down, and the cave became home to a gang of motorcyclists who horribly vandalized the caverns.
“Once I was over here and there was smoke coming out of the entrance,” Whidby said. “I went in with a cloth over my face and found two burning automobile tires. The bats that didn’t get smoked out when the restaurant burned down were definitely smoked out by the tires.”
Then, in 1989, Scott and Janet Dixon moved to the region and redeveloped the cave.
“I heard they were here, but I was concerned about them during the winter months as far as getting enough money,” Whidby said. “So I came up with the idea of the Haunted Cave to keep them here.”
Whidby already had some experience since he also helped set up a haunted Indian cave two years before in Grainger County.
Though the haunted tour is shorter than most, guests experience unique thrills in a much more scenic setting than regular haunted houses offer. Since it is a cave, the tour gets much darker than your average haunted corn maze, and the terrain is rougher.
Also, the volunteer crew works around the clock to deck out the whole cave with carved pumpkins, props and “scare sequences.”
“There have been planning meetings for this year’s haunted cave since February,” Assistant Director Beth Crosslin said. “And we’ve been down here every evening for awhile getting all of this set up. We’re also sort of known for our pumpkins since we carve 60 to 70 every year.”
The real cave itself adds to the experience. The beautiful walls and ceilings will keep those hard-to-scare adventurers in awe as will the live bats that make their home inside the caverns. Whidby reintroduced them to the cave after the vandalism incidents, but he assures visitors that there is nothing to worry about.
“There’s probably about 300 solitary bats down there, among others,” Whidby said. “But they’re fine; they don’t bite you and suck out your blood or anything.”
With all this, it’s no wonder that the cave brings in so many visitors each night. But the fun ends after Halloween night, so students should make plans to attend soon.
Admission is $10, or $8 if guests bring a non-perishable food item for Clinton Middle School’s Hawks Helping Others Service-Learning Academy. The haunted cave will be open today through Halloween night from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. For more information, visit the cave’s Web site at http://www.thehauntedcave.net.
