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Cave Tours at Dunbar Cave State Park: Everything You Need to Know

By Meghan E. Gattignolo 

Once upon a time, Dunbar Cave was an exciting party hub on Clarksville’s hot summer nights. Though now past its heyday for dances and concerts, the cave is still a Clarksville gem. In 2005, researchers discovered something special on the cave walls. In the same chamber where people once gathered for parties and dances, they found 800-year-old cave drawings, left behind by the Mississippians. Dunbar Cave State Park is a rare location where tourists can get relatively close to ancient cave art. The only way to get a good look at the art yourself is to join a cave tour. Follow these steps to enjoy a tour before the season ends! 

Know your tour  

First, you need to know which tour you want to experience. Dunbar Cave’s tours have changed a little over the years, so it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into before you go. Three different tours inside the cave are being offered right now. 

Enter the Underworld is the cave tour, especially if you’re curious about the cave art. It’s also the only tour offered every day. This tour discusses the art at length and gives a broader history of the cave. The duration is roughly an hour and it takes you about a quarter of a mile inside the cave. Except for the four-foot ceiling clearance on the way to the last room on the tour, where the average adult does have to duck for about 20 feet, this tour is easy for most people. Ages five years old and up can handle this one. 

Unknown Realms is double the time and price, but you get to hear amusing stories about Dunbar’s past as a tourist attraction. The guide tells you all the myths and legends Dunbar Cave became known for, as well as more recent history of the cave. This tour involves about a mile of walking on slippery steps and some crouching. Everyone eight years old and up are welcome on this tour. Unknown Realms is only available on Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm, so plan accordingly.  

The newest cave adventure is Spray Hall , the chamber furthest into the cave anyone can safely reach. Because of its location, this part of the cave is one of the least traveled in more recent years, but past famous figures have made their mark on the walls along the way. Lots of tight turns and climbing in muddy conditions are involved to reach the coveted Spray Hall, so this is not the tour for the faint of heart. Ages eight and up are welcome, and it’s only available on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm.    

Plan ahead  

People love spontaneous fun, but expecting to jump on a cave tour at a state park inside the city limits of Tennessee’s fifth largest and third fastest growing city on a warm summer Saturday isn’t going to work out the way you think it will. Cave tours generally sell out well before the day of, and weekend tours often sell out several days in advance. To register for a time slot, you can do so online here , or call the Dunbar Cave Visitor Center at 931-648-5526 between 8am and 4:30pm any day of the week.     

Come prepared  

Dunbar Cave has a few rules.   

One rule is no photography inside the cave. The Eastern Band of Cherokee advise the staff of Dunbar Cave State Park annually and educate them on Indigenous beliefs. One thing the Cherokee have requested of the park is to not allow photography inside the cave. The presence of the Mississippian art makes the cave a sacred site for the Cherokee and other Indigenous cultures. For this reason, you’ll be asked to keep your phone in your pocket once you enter.  Don’t worry, you can’t get any reception inside the cave anyway.  

Make sure you and everyone in your party shows up to a cave tour with a flashlight. The cave no longer has any form of permanent artificial lighting because after years of damaging activities, Dunbar Cave is now being preserved in its natural state as much as possible – so that means it’s dark. 

Finally, remember to dress functionally: closed-toe shoes are highly recommended, as are hoodies or a long-sleeved jacket. The cave is a constant 56 degrees year-round, so the moist cave air can be a bit chilly for some.  

Now that you know what to expect, make sure you reserve your tour while you still can in 2023! Tours only run through September, and then the cave will be closed again until next May (though the state park itself is open year-round). Weather conditions and bat conservation prevent accessibility in the fall and winter. Also, don’t forget to check out the latest issue of Second & Commerce to learn even more about Dunbar Cave State Park. 

Postcards courtesy of Billyfrank Morrison Historic photos courtesy of Dunbar Cave State Park

Meghan E. Gattignolo  is a freelance writer and longtime Clarksville, TN resident. She loves to obsess about historical subjects and annoy her family daily with unsolicited random facts. Meghan holds a History B.A. from Austin Peay State University and lives in town with her husband and two daughters. 

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Dunbar Cave - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

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• Clarksville

Explore Dunbar Cave State Park

Clarksville, Tennessee

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Added by Lucas Bremer

Dunbar Cave is located 60 minutes northwest of Nashville in Clarksville, TN. Dunbar Cave is the most prominent of several caves located in this designated natural area. In the entrance of the cave, square dances, radio shows, and big band era concerts were once held. Archeologists have found that this cave has been occupied by man for thousands of years, drawn by its constant stream flow and natural air conditioning.

Spelunking in the cave is offered seasonally, and tickets are required to enter Dunbar Cave. All participants must have flashlights. Children under 4 are not allowed in the cave.

Reservations are strongly recommended as tours frequently sell out and reservations are the only way to ensure a spot is available for you and/or your party. Please plan accordingly.

Angling is a popular activity on beautiful Swan Lake. The lake is fed by a stream that flows from the mouth of Dunbar Cave. A valid TN Fishing License is required.

The park has seven picnic tables located just behind the visitors' center on a hill overlooking scenic Swan Lake. Picnic area is not wheelchair accessible.

More information on this State Park can be found  here.

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Dunbar Cave State Park to launch virtual reality tours, making visits possible for everyone

Dunbar Cave State Park is getting ready to launch a virtual reality project that will enable visitors to tour the cave even when they can't physically be onsite.

Earlier this month, officials were in town with cameras, lights and other equipment.

It was an exciting milestone in a project that was originally conceived in January of 2020 by Park Ranger John Ball. His idea was to create a virtual reality film that would make touring Clarksville's historically and archaeologically interesting cave possible for everyone.

Amanda Blount is the Friends of Dunbar Cave (FODC) grants committee Chair, and one of the group members who worked on making the project a reality.

“We had a grant team that wrote the proposal for Humanities Tennessee,” Blount said. “Once we were awarded the grant we put together a public request for quotes from qualified filmmakers. In August of this year we did a walk-thru with interested groups, and this is the team that won the bid. We're very excited for this project.”

Sydney Harris is with Nashville's Arch Media Group.

She is the assistant to the producer on the project.

“So, we're doing a 360° stereoscopic shoot of the cave, which will be really nice for people who cant come into the cave because of handicap accessibility limitations,” Harris said. “They will be able to watch this online. They can put on a virtual reality headset, and it will be almost as if they're in the cave.”

Harris says this is definitely a unique project, because of the 360° and stereoscopic visuals, and that there might even be something next-level with the audio as well.

Members of FODC, Park Rangers, the on-screen participants and the eight-member film crew took a weekend to shoot the footage. The premise was simple, just a guided tour of the cave, with a focus on the cave paintings and markings, some as old as 1,000 years, some from the 1700's and 1800's. Experts will be explaining the meaning and importance of the drawings, markings and landmarks inside the cave.

Demetrius Hnarakis is the director/cinematographer on the project.

“We're working on this production with FODC to bring Park Ranger John Ball's idea to life,” Hnarakis said. “Were following the park rangers, Dr. Jan Simek and archaeologist Beau Carroll on a tour of the cave using some relatively new technology. This tech is finally becoming affordable.

"I have two 360° cameras on a rig, each one has one lens in front and one in back, and they're mounted in a way that allows for stereo-graphic 3D images. With a VR headset you'll see everything as if you were standing in the center of the action.”

Hnarakis and his team planned on going through the cave twice with that set-up, and also shooting additional footage with a standard video camera.

Park Ranger John Ball has been working at Dunbar Cave for about three years.

“I originated this idea, and sort of crowd-sourced it,” Ball said. “I wanted to be able to offer a tour to people during that time of year when the cave was closed, and also create something that was accessible for people who physically can't go on one of our cave tours. We thought it would be cool to make it like an actual virtual reality cave tour.

“I decided to try and make this happen in April of 2020. I approached FODC in January of this year, and encouraged them to apply for the Humanities Tennessee grant. We got that in May, and then put out requests for bids. We met with filmmakers who were interested in the project, and we were fortunate enough to get Demetrius involved.”

Ball says bits and pieces of the project will end up on the Dunbar Cave website, and others will be shared with educational institutions, for their use.

Once all the equipment is acquired, people will be able to take a virtual cave tour at Dunbar Cave State Park, something that will hopefully be offered year-round. Ball says it's possible that the program could be up and running by Summer of 2022, and that more grants have been applied for, to help with the cost of this very expensive technology.

Dr. Jan Simek of the University of Tennessee was excited to be back at Dunbar Cave.

“I'm an archaeologist, and I was actually involved early-on with the discovery and first documentation of the cave art that is here, back in 2006,” Simek said. “There are lots of things that make this cave really cool from an archaeological point of view, two things in particular. The thing that brought me here and keeps bringing me here is that there are cave paintings that were made about 1,000 years ago, so, Mississippian era. There are later Native American markings and writings on the wall, as well. Then, there is a very extensive archaeological site in front of the cave, that was tested when the state acquired this property in the 1970's.

“It has been sealed ever since. It is one of the most complete archaeological sequences that we have in the Eastern United States. It dates back to the ice age, basically. It's a stratified series of occupations that begins about 500 years ago and goes back 12,000 years. This cave was used repeatedly over the course of that time, so you have representation by almost every cultural phase that archaeology has defined, that's very rare.

“We at UT have been involved in documenting cave art for twenty years. We have a more scientifically inclined 3-dimensional modeling process that we use. We actually use two processes, one is LIDAR, which creates very high resolution scans, and we often use photogrammetry in documenting these cave drawings, as well. It's very exciting.”

Find updates on this project at Friends of Dunbar Cave on Facebook , or at the Dunbar Cave State Park website www.tnstateparks.com .

You can tour a cave with ancient Native American cave art in Tennessee

Dunbar cave state park: walk through a sacred cave with ancient native american petroglyphs.

Scroll to bottom to read my experience on the cave tour

Tennessee is blessed with some of the most spectacular state parks in the Eastern US, with more than 80 waterfalls and 1,100 miles of hiking trails. Many of the parks have Native American significance, including Dunbar Cave State Park. This is a cave tour with a special treat — ancient Native American sacred petroglyphs.

The park holds historical, natural, archaeological, and geological features, and hosts community events in the large entrance to Dunbar Cave.

Location of Dunbar Cave State Park

Address: 401 Old Dunbar Cave Rd, Clarksville, TN 37043 Website: tnstateparks.com Phone: (931) 648-5526 Google map: Go to the Google Map

Located near Clarksville in Northwest Tennessee less than an hour from Nashville, this park is close to the Kentucky state line and is easily accessible to residents of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Indiana, and Alabama. Tennessee State Parks are free for state residents and out-of-state visitors alike. However, the cave tours do have an entry fee (see details below).

History of Dunbar Cave

The Dunbar Cave site has a long history of Native American activity, stretching way back to the Paleo era (10000–8000 B.C.). It was occupied for thousands of years, with most of the artifacts found by archaeologists dating to the Archaic era (from 8000–1000 B.C.).

During the Mississippian era (800–1550 A.D.), the cave was a sacred ceremonial site, and this is the period the petroglyphic cave art was created.

The cave property was claimed by the Dunbar family in the 1700s, but never deeded, and was subsequently also claimed by Robert Nelson who received the deed and won a legal fight over the property. Even though the Dunbar family was removed from the property, the cave retained their name.

The cave was a source of saltpeter during the Mexican-American War, and after the Civil War, a hotel was built nearby. The region became a tourist destination, and singer Roy Acuff bought the cave in 1948, using it as a music venue and adding a golf course to the property. After a few years, the hotel burned and popularity declined.

The State of Tennessee purchased the cave property in the 1970s.

Dunbar Cave Tour Prices

Ages 13+ = $15.00 Under age 13 = $9.00 Age 5 and under not permitted

Register for Dunbar Cave Tours

Tours are seasonal and begin in May. You can pick a tour date and register / pay in advance on the Tennessee State Parks Dunbar Cave Tour website. Start here:

Dunbar Cave Tours Registration

Dunbar cave policies.

There are a lot of rules related to this tour. This information was pasted directly from the official Dunbar Cave registration page:

You must bring a HANDHELD flashlight. If you do not, flashlights are available for purchase in gift shop. No lanterns, cellphones, or headlamps. The following items are not allowed on tours: backpacks, large bags, strollers, child carriers, tripods or similar items. Photography is not allowed inside the cave due to presence Native American religious symbols. The temperature inside the cave is 58ºF. You may wish to bring a light jacket during your tour. Cave walkways are relatively flat but muddy and/or slippery in places. Some stooping and climbing of steps is necessary. Because of the conditions of the cave, it is not handicap accessible and not recommended for people with mobility issues. Children under the age of 5 are not permitted in the cave. Please note the following: Arrive in plenty of time to park and check in. There is limited parking and tours begin promptly. All cave tour participants must sign a liability waiver at front desk prior to entering the cave.

As a photographer, it’s a bit of a bummer that photography isn’t allowed, but I understand and appreciate the reasoning.

My experience on the Dunbar Cave Tour

I registered for the 9am tour on the first Saturday of the season (season opens in May). While tours accept up to 20 people, my tour consisted of myself, a family of three, the tour guide, a park ranger, and a second tour guide walking along.

Bring a very bright flashlight — As the rules state, you must bring or purchase a flashlight because there is no electricity inside the cave. Bring the brightest flashlight you can find. My flashlight is one of those mini Maglite-style LED lights, and while it seems very bright, it was small and dim inside the darkness of the cave. The tour guides had very bright lights. After the tour I ordered this one from Amazon and it’s much brighter than my old one .

Tour lasted 1 hour — Our tour lasted about an hour, but a group with more people would probably last longer. Our guide was new, and he walked us through pretty quickly.

Slippery when wet — The cave is wet inside, with numerous shallow puddles, muddy spots, and slippery wooden planks and rocks. I wore my Oboz hiking shoes with trail gripping soles, and I felt no slippage on the walk.

The tour is not accessible for anyone in a wheelchair or with mobility problems. In a couple of areas, you must bend pretty low to walk through, and the metal gate at the entrance has a knee-high barricade that you must step over to enter the cave mouth.

Rock formations and graffiti — Inside the cave, you’ll see interesting natural things like silver cave moss, and of course, a few beautiful examples of rock formations. However, this is not the cave to visit if you want epic cave formations.

Since the cave was formerly privately-owned and left open to party-people from the entertainment venue just outside the cave’s mouth, it suffered a lot of vandalism. Actually, some of the vandalism predates the Civil War. Names and dates are scratched, etched, and smoked onto many of the caves walls, rock formations, ceilings.

There are several examples of stalagmites that have been broken off, leaving only fractured nubs. In one of the rooms, labelled on the cave wall as Herculaneum (after the ancient Roman neighbor to Pompeii), thousands of names have been left behind. It’s so prevalent, graffiti almost seems to have been encouraged. Luckily, the age of it makes it an interesting and somewhat unique aspect of the cave tour.

Cold war rations — In one of the smaller rooms of the cave, there’s a blackened room with a pile of concrete rubble and old canisters leftover from the era when the cave was equipped as a cold war air raid shelter. Here you can see a blackened old piece of rations, which survived a fire set by vandals that scorched the room and caused the collapse of the concrete wall inside the shelter.

Ancient Native American cave art — For me, the real reason to visit Dunbar Cave is the 800-year-old Mississippian culture wall art. When you arrive at the location of the art, which is on the cave wall only a few feet from floor level, the tour guide switches to a red-filtered flashlight to point out the black markings, which are actually pretty hard to distinguish.

Installed signage illustrates more clearly the art you’re seeing before you. There are two symbols, which are thought to represent the middle world (Earth) and the lower world (the underworld or the land of the dead).

A third drawing nearby shows a reclining humanoid figure, possibly a supernatural warrior or a great chief. This figure could potentially represent the location of a burial, although the guide said there’s no evidence of a grave.

Much respect to the ancient artists, who would have had to enter the so-called “dark zone” of the cave with handheld torches made of bundled cane stems. They would have had to belly-crawl part of the way (although that’s not necessary now thanks to the labors of prisoners who dug out a foot path). This would have been a powerful act of faith for them.

Thanks for reading!

Be sure to visit me on  Facebook ,  Google+  or  Pinterest,  or on my website at  keithdotson.com .

Note: This article contains Amazon links. I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.

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CLARKSVILLE BLOG

Dive into the history of dunbar cave.

Clarksville is home to many outdoor attractions, parks, and walking trails, but none have as much history packed into one place as Dunbar Cave. Located just ten minutes away from historic downtown Clarksville, the 144-acre Dunbar Cave State Park is a simple nature park at first glance. The Visitor’s Center and front garden lead into a charming picnic area where you can spend a breezy afternoon overlooking Swan Lake. But down the path, just beyond the picnic tables, is the entrance to the cave. Walking up the steps onto the poured concrete floor, I could immediately feel the cool air from the natural springs flowing from the cave mouth. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine the cave of the past: the floor filled with electric lights and people, the two-story bar bursting with food and drinks, and the area overflowing with live music. Standing in front of the cave, you can feel its history embedded deep in the rocks.

Header Photo: Lucas Ryan Chambers

Dunbar Cave has been used for thousands of years, namely as a source of shelter for Native American tribes. The cave is the largest-known cave on the Western Highland Ridge of Tennessee and contains Mississippian Native American charcoal cave art and limestone carvings that date back to the fourteenth century. Native American arrowheads, tools, and even burial sites have been discovered at the cave entrance and farther inside the eight-and-a-half miles of explored passages. The inside of the cave is open May through September, so all I got was a peek through the gate at what lies within!

In 1790, Isaac Rowe Peterson discovered the cave and laid claim to it before collecting his family from North Carolina to live on the land. When he returned to Tennessee the following year, he was surprised to find that Thomas Dunbar had constructed a blockhouse on the property. The two men engaged in a legal battle over the land that lasted until 1792. Peterson won the rights to the land, but Dunbar’s name was the one that lived on! 

During the Civil War, the Confederate army used the cave to hide horses and troops from the Union soldiers. It was also used for social gatherings during the war, which became its primary use after the war ended as the cave’s consistent temperatures kept the area cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Following the end of the Civil War, the area around Dunbar Cave became known as Affricanna Town, a place of refuge for liberated and self-liberated former slaves. It grew to hold over four thousand African Americans and provided them with a safe and secure place to live as they moved from bondage into freedom.

The rich mineral springs surrounding Dunbar Cave — named Idaho Springs by the Native Americans — were said to have strong healing properties and prompted the erection of cabins in the 1850s and the Idaho Springs Hotel in 1879. The hotel changed hands several times over the next fifty years, during which it caught fire and was rebuilt in 1893. Dances and conventions were held on the wooden floor in the cave entrance until 1931, when a group of Clarksville businessmen formed the Dunbar Cave and Idaho Springs Corporation and decided to turn the cave and park into a wellness resort that they dubbed “The Showplace of the South.” They constructed electric lights, swimming pools, a bathhouse, tennis courts, a footbridge across Swan Lake, and even enlarged the dance floor and concession stand at the cave entrance, adding a railed terrace to the top. The Big Band era took Dunbar Cave by storm. Musicians such as Glenn Miller, Kay Kaiser, Artie Shaw, Guy Lombardo, Lena Horne, Blue Baron, Benny Goodman, and more performed at the cave entrance and drew crowds of thousands. 

In 1948, Roy Acuff put Dunbar on the Tennessee Music Pathway when he purchased the cave and developed the park into a country music destination, featuring artists like Minnie Pearl, Ernest Tubb, and the Smokey Mountain Boys. He famously headlined a Fourth of July show to celebrate his ownership of the cave. Acuff built an adjoining golf course and billed his music, dancing, and radio shows as Roy Acuff’s Dunbar Cave. In 1950, the Idaho Springs Hotel burned down for the second time and was never rebuilt. Dunbar Cave declined in popularity because of the rise of air conditioning units during the 1950s and was eventually sold by Acuff in 1963. 

The city of Clarksville purchased the golf course in 1972 following the cave’s closure, and in 1973, the state of Tennessee purchased the rest of the property. They removed all commercialization from the cave and park, including the electric lights added as fixtures inside the cave and its entrance. They filled the swimming pool and replaced it with gardens, renovated the historic 1933 bathhouse to turn it into what is now the Visitor’s Center and museum, and declared the cave to be a state natural area, which it has remained ever since. Dunbar Cave closed in 2010 as a result of the discovery of bats with White Nose Syndrome but reopened with no further problems in 2015.

Today, you can explore Dunbar Cave and its prehistoric Native American artwork through guided cave tours from May to September. In 2022, Friends of Dunbar Cave released a 360-degree virtual reality tour of the cave for those who are unable to take a tour during the open season or who wish to tour the cave throughout the year. To see more of the park as a whole, check out the three miles of hiking trails that take you around the lake and through the prairie and forest on the north side of the park. See if you spot any cool wildlife on your way and use the park’s checklists to keep track of your flora and fauna finds. The park also offers activities and educational events throughout the year with park rangers, so be sure to keep an eye on the park’s website. I’ve given you a bird’s eye view of the history behind Dunbar Cave, and more can be discovered about the cultural history onsite. 2023 marks Dunbar Cave’s fiftieth anniversary as a state park, so on your next trip to Clarksville, make sure to stop by the museum and Visitor’s Center and experience the entire park for yourself!

Julia Koslowsky

Freelance Writer in partnership with Media One.

25 Jefferson Street Suite 300 Clarksville, TN 37040     |     1 (800) 530-2487

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