Who owns Meramec Caverns?
Meramec Caverns is the collective name for a 4.6-mile (7.4 km) cavern system in the Ozarks, near Stanton, Missouri. The Cavern also contains a massive sheet wall of formations formed during the past several thousand years, which the cave calls its “stage curtain” and which is also used for displaying the light and sound show…
Meramec Caverns is the collective name for a 4.6-mile (7.4 km) cavern system in the Ozarks, near Stanton, Missouri. The Cavern also contains a massive sheet wall of formations formed during the past several thousand years, which the cave calls its “stage curtain” and which is also used for displaying the light and sound show called “Greatest Show Under the Earth.
Who owns Meramec Caverns?
The Meramec Caverns have existed for the past 400 million years, slowly forming through deposits of limestone. In centuries past, Native Americans used the cavern system for shelter. The first cave west of the Mississippi River to be explored by Europeans, it was first visited in 1722 by a French miner. Current owner Lester Turilli Sr., Dill’s grandson, once slapped 427 Meramec Caverns bumper stickers onto cars in the parking lot in a single day, a number he says has never been equalled.
During the 18th century, the cave was used for extracting saltpeter for the manufacture of gunpowder. In the Civil War era, the Union Army used the caves as a saltpeter plant, but the plant was discovered and destroyed by Confederate guerrillas, likely including the future infamous outlaw Jesse James.
Currently, the cavern system is a tourist attraction, with more than fifty billboards along Interstate 44, and is considered one of the primary attractions along former U.S. Highway 66. Meramec Caverns is the most-visited cave in Missouri with some 150,000 visitors annually.
