Cascade Cavern

Cascade Cavern lies five miles south of Boerne, and its commercial life has come in two runs: tours operated from 1933 to about 1941, and the cave reopened about 1950. Known first as Hester's Cave, it became famous through Frank Nicholson's published accounts of cave exploration. Today a commercial tour passes through about half a mile of passages and rooms decorated with flowstone. Kendall County sits on the Edwards Plateau, where elevations run from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, and Cibolo Creek is one of two important streams that rise in the county.

What the plaque says

Cascade Cavern Probably formed during the Pleistocene epoch by the underground passage of the Cibolo River, Cascade Cavern presents an interesting mix of geological, archeological, and historical features. It exhibits a combination of the joint and the dip and strike types of caverns, and is the home of a number of unusual animals, including cliff and leopard frogs, Mexican brown bats, and Cascade Cavern salamanders. Archeological evidence uncovered near the cave indicates the presence of two Indian sites. It is probable that the Indians used the cave for shelter, and soot found on the sides of a natural chimney suggests that they had fires. Commercial development of the cave, known earlier as Hester's Cave, began in the 1930s. The current name, taken from the seven waterfalls at the entrance to the cathedral room, officially was adopted in a 1932 ceremony led by State Attorney General, and later Governor of Texas, James V. Allred. Over the years, Cascade Cavern has provided visitors and Boerne area residents with many opportunities for recreation and exploration, and it remains one of the state's important geological sites. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 20 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 21 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.
• Frontier Times Museum — 24 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 25 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.

More markers nearby

• Pinta Trail in Kendall County — 2.4 mi
• Dr. Ferdinand Ludwig Von Herff — 2.4 mi
• Adolph (Ad) Toepperwein — 3.4 mi
• Homesite of Albert Paul Kutzer — 3.5 mi