Longhorn Caverns

In the '30s, FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) gave work to many young men who'd been on the skids because of the Depression. The young men worked all over the country in regional CCC camps doing all sorts of public works, and many of our state and national parks were created from the work done at that time. The CCC is generally hailed as a triumph by historians.

One project here in central Texas that was a CCC deal was to make an old Sam Bass hideout, and an even older living space and meeting grounds for the various aboriginal Americans living in the area--an extremely long set of underground caverns--into a viable visitor destination.

The clubhouse was built first. The structure was to seem as if it was growing out of the land. Inside, there are pictures of the mostly 18-25 year old guys working in the summer--shirts torn off long ago and long pants pulled up to the knees.



They next plugged up most of the entrances that had been used variously through time by natives, by Sam Bass, by Confederate gunpowder makers, and by speakeasy operators, and installed a Grand Entance. From the steps of the Clubhouse, the view looks strange:



And heading towards that spot, you see a kind of Grand Central-like stairway down to a metal gate.



Nowadays a tour guide will escort paying customers through artificially lit beautiful areas.



We were told that this cavern system, the Longhorn Caverns, along with a system in Kentucky, are the only two types of a special type of cavern system in the States. They were formed by flowing river water--running sideways--instead of the more common vertical water flow created caverns.



A mineral that is very common in this system is calcite. It is a soft crystal, like quartz, but less valuable and less useful. When the CCC boys were cleaning debris from the caves, they found areas like this and thought they'd struck diamonds and were filthy rich.



Then we moved into a different stretch of the system, where both the amount of water and the speed of it's flow were greater than before. This made the walls much smoother, with less stalactites and stalagmites.



It reminds me of the smooth table-like "beach" at Montana de Oro, solid stone smoothed over by rushing water, as opposed to a slow drip from above or slow gurgle from below.



Then we reached the largest concentration of calcite in the whole US, a room lit with multi-colored lights that glowed in a juxtaposition to the wildly beautiful natural sights we'd been walking around for an hour already.



If planning a trip to Austin, think about a day excursion to the north-west, close to the small town of Burnet, out in the Hill Country. You won't be disappointed.