Oregon Caves

Late in 1874 Elijah Davidson, a twenty-five-year-old hunter, was on the slopes of the Siskiyous above the Illinois Valley when his dog Bruno went after a bear and vanished into a hole in the mountainside. Davidson went in after him with a few matches. When they ran out he felt his way back toward daylight by following the sound of the stream that runs through the cave, and Bruno came out after him. The mountain above is named Mount Elijah for him.

The cave is unusual for its rock. Most caves dissolve out of limestone; this one runs through marble, limestone that heat and pressure recrystallized long before acidic groundwater began dissolving it into some three miles of passages. Joaquin Miller wrote it up in 1907, and in 1909 President Taft made it Oregon's first national monument. Early operators blasted tunnels and crawlways to get tourists through, leaving rubble behind; since 1985 the Park Service has been clearing debris, mending broken formations and replacing lights that heated and dried the cave with cooler ones.

Ranger-led tours go in from spring into fall, with stairs and low passages; book ahead. The six-story Oregon Caves Chateau beside the entrance, built in 1934 of local wood and stone and still holding its original furniture, has been closed since 2018 for restoration. In 2014 the monument was enlarged to take in the surrounding watershed and became the Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve.