[HN Gopher] How the Kentucky Cave Wars Reshaped the State's Tour...
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How the Kentucky Cave Wars Reshaped the State's Tourism Industry
Author : samclemens
Score : 61 points
Date : 2023-07-31 21:58 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| Tourism gets a bad rep but it's one of the few things that gets
| money into poor areas. What would the Algarve or Florida look
| like without pensionados from the North?
| malfist wrote:
| I'm from kentucky, and I agree with your assessment. The town I
| grew up in has ~80% of it's gross income come from welfare.
| It's rural as rural can be. Tucked into the mountains, dial up
| internet still the norm. At one point we were ranked 26th in
| poorest counties in the country (next door Owsley county was
| second poorest).
|
| It's a beautiful area, unspoiled, old forests lots of water,
| caves, just beautiful. The county over went wet (meaning they
| can sell alcohol) and turned themselves into a hippy tourist
| destination. Rock climbing, craft beer, caving, kayaking, zip
| lines, the whole nine yards. Over the last decade they went
| from 3 restaurants to supporting dozens. The place has really
| prospered.
|
| My home town has a median household income of 16k/yr, vs the
| tourist destination at 44k/yr.
|
| My hometown is still dry, not a tourist destination, and is
| exactly the same as it was when I left it.
| jghn wrote:
| What is the name of the hippy tourist county?
| reportingsjr wrote:
| The area OP is talking about is referred to as the Red
| River Gorge, it spans a handful counties (powell, wolfe,
| menifee, and lee county) which are in various states of
| development.
|
| Definitely an interesting place to travel around. You can
| go drive 20 minutes and go from fairly developed tourist-
| ville with gift shops and well kept cabins galore to rough
| oil/logging roads with people living in rundown buildings
| in extreme poverty.
|
| Lots of incredible natural resources that have been poorly
| protected compared to a lot of wild areas out west.
| Unfortunately it doesn't look like things are getting any
| better in that regard.
| MH15 wrote:
| Red River Gorge is a gem for the rock climbing community.
| I frequented the area a few years back, there's plenty of
| places to dirtbag around outside of the tourist cabins.
| Hoping the continued development stays positive.
| malfist wrote:
| Rock climbing is what really started this whole thing
| honestly. I remember my grandmother complaining about all
| the "devil worshipping rock climbers" at the Gorge when I
| was growing up.
|
| Funny how moving to a less homogeneous place gives you a
| lot different perspective on different people.
| malfist wrote:
| Slade is the city, Powell is the county
| mistrial9 wrote:
| tourism does bring a share of modern problems -- money does
| not fix everything. Also, the name "hippy" is a word from the
| outside media.. its not respectful and is often a slur. Maybe
| those "hippy" people deserve some kind of respect after all ?
|
| source: real people
| malfist wrote:
| When your median household income is 16k a year, money
| fixes a heck of a lot of problems.
| ChrisBland wrote:
| Sad that your town keeps electing the same leadership with no
| long term vision on how to improved the community. Sad to see
| towns stuck in their ways to move forward
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| Flotida would still be a major producer of lumber, seafood,
| citrus, cattle, and Winter vegetables.
| blamazon wrote:
| Also mining - Florida has a majority of the phosphate mining
| operations of the USA.
| alexwasserman wrote:
| Driving through KY on a roadtrip two years ago saw all the signs
| so decided to stop. We'd never heard of the caves.
|
| I'm retrospect I wish we'd known and booked the longer tours,
| which all sell out early in the day.
|
| I thought the kids would want 5 mins of walking around and then
| be bored, but they loved it all, and it prompted us to go to more
| caves on a different trip to WI.
|
| There was even older conflict in Mammoth Caves too. Earlier
| fighting over control of the caves to extract saltpeter for gun
| powder, then a story about a businessman who imported mushrooms
| from France to grow in the caves, but was stymied by a rival who
| poured oil over them.
|
| The whole area was beautiful and well worth the stop.
| bombcar wrote:
| There are caves in WI?
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Quite a few, actually. Not as spectacular as Mammoth, of
| course. Cave of the Mounds and Crystal Cave are both popular
| tours, but there are caves dotted all over the state
| (including access via the lake up on the north shore).
|
| Edit: link to the Wisconsin Speleological Society:
| https://www.wisconsincaves.org/home
| tstrimple wrote:
| It seems like many caves have a rich history of exploitation
| and shenanigans. I heard similar stories about other larger
| cave systems that I've been able to visit.
| scrapcode wrote:
| I'm originally from that area and remember being absolutely
| captivated by the caves when I was younger. My father had a
| friend that was a spelunker that helped build walkway bridges
| in these systems before they opened. That was the first real
| example that I remember of knowing someone that had a cool job,
| that wasn't just construction, and was a concrete example that
| you really might be able to do jobs that you wanted to do.
| whycome wrote:
| There's something beautifully ironic about "not construction"
| --> "concrete example"
| iszomer wrote:
| Tangentially related to the game Kentucky Route Zero?
| malfist wrote:
| Fun to see my state on hacker news for something positive.
|
| Kentucky has what's called karst topography. Meaning that our
| bedrock is predominantly calcite rocks like limestone. These
| rocks are worn away by anything slightly acidic, including rain.
|
| Groundwater, which we have plenty of, makes for lots of sinkholes
| and caves. Also gives us some really hard water and hay that is
| high in mineral content. That hay is why Lexington is the horse
| capital of the world (self proclaimed).
| jrh3 wrote:
| Went on a Scout trip to Mammoth Cave in the 90's. What an
| amazing experience. We did a late night 2 hour+ hike through
| one of the cave systems. True spelunking!
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I like to call digging through legacy code, "code
| spelunking." Lots of hidden sinkholes and other invisible
| dangers there, too!
| goda90 wrote:
| If you're interested in more Kentucky cave stuff, Internet
| Historian on YouTube made this great video about a man getting
| stuck in the cave he was trying to develop for tourism.
| https://youtu.be/nnI_oZKxzl0
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Yeah, this is great. The presentation initially appears scrappy
| and low-budget but it's highly expressive and the content is
| extremely well presented and researched.
|
| Warning though, it's no coincidence that this was initially
| released around Halloween.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| It's so well done, but I could never remember the details when
| it came up in conversation. Thanks for the link!
| ekun wrote:
| This story is in the article as well.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| "A hollow voice says 'Plugh.'"
|
| The cave wars gave us a classic computer game as well. More than
| one of Colossal Cave's features were directly lifted from
| Mammoth.
| jasperry wrote:
| Deceptive billboards trying to steer tourists away from the
| actual Mammoth Cave National Park have continued up until recent
| times. I'm not saying there aren't other caves worth exploring,
| but when there's a giant "Welcome to Mammoth Cave" billboard with
| an arrow pointing to an exit that only leads to an independent
| gift shop, well...
| robohoe wrote:
| If you're ever in the southern Indiana or northern Kentucky area,
| check out the Indiana Cave Trail [0]. There are 4+ caves that are
| relatively close by. One of them even has an underground lake
| where you take a boat with the guide. Free tshirt if you visit
| all 4 caves.
|
| https://squireboonecaverns.com/local-attractions/indiana-cav...
| aikiplayer wrote:
| Just came back from a short trip to Kentucky. The area we were
| had tons of billboards advertising caves. Really jumped out at me
| at the time.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Those Cave Wars. They were Dark Days. District 12, the odds are
| NEVER in our favor!
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(page generated 2023-08-02 23:02 UTC)