Rose Cave is an interesting cave with three entrances, two of which require wading or swimming, and about 2900 feet of passage. The main entrance is quite large and picturesque and is frequently visited by fishermen, who use the cave crickets they find there as bait.

Late 17th century settlers were actually the first Europeans to discover and document the cave's existence. Signatures from the 1800s and suspicious mounds of dirt and debris hint that this cave may have once been used for saltpeter mining, although no artifacts remain as evidence of those activities. The cave does, however, have a plentiful supply of bat guano, the primary source of saltpeter, since it is home to a colony of endangered Eastern Gray Bats.

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via email to your friendly, neighborhood speleoweb hostess,
April Hannah, NSS #35012.

(C) Copyright 2003, April Hannah for the Upper Cumberland Grotto of the NSS. All Rights Reserved. Photos available on this web site are the property of individual members of the Upper Cumberland Grotto. Failure to request permission before saving the contents of this web page to disk for your own use is a violation of the U.S. Copyright Law.