This history — the exploitation of both the cave and the people who worked in it — sits alongside the ancient mining history as part of the complete story of what humans have done inside Mammoth Cave.

The Cave As Tourist Destination — And What Visitors Encountered

After the War of 1812, saltpeter prices fell and the cave’s commercial value shifted.

Entrepreneurs recognized that tourists would pay to see what lay underground, and Mammoth Cave became one of the first important tourist destinations in American history — a cave that was being commercially guided before the railroad era, drawing visitors from across the country and eventually from abroad.

The tourist era produced its own significant human story: the enslaved guides who led those early visitors through the underground passages.