Page 3

Back to page 2

Jan and Vernon McDaniel managed the cave and campground after Dr. Rowsey’s death in 1973. On March 20, 1976 a tornado hit the Diamond Caverns KOA Campground, Park City, and Diamond Caverns. The north portion of the Colonial Lodge was damaged and removed, leading to the current appearance of the lodge.

Diamond Cavern cave attraction (left) - Diamond Caverns Resort Co. golf course (right) aerial photos by: Gary C. Berdeaux

Moyer Enterprises purchased the Diamond Caverns Resort from the McDaniels in 1982, with ownership being later transferred to an investor group as a private membership resort. In 1993, Ronald C. Eken and his BullEk Corporation purchased Diamond Caverns Resort and a nearby public campground named Cedar Hills. BullEk purchased an adjacent eighteen hole golf course called Park Place in 1994, incorporating it into the expanding resort. Diamond Caverns received less promotion as the emphasis changed from a show cave to a large resort with many facets.

Left to right (back row) Roger & Carol McClure, Gary & Susan Berdeaux, Stan & Kay Sides, Judy Smith
(Front row left to right) Mayo & Larry McCarty, Gordon Smith

Five cavers and their wives, Gary and Susan Berdeaux, Larry and Mayo McCarty, Roger and Carol McClure, Stanley and Kay Sides, and Gordon and Judy Smith purchased the cave property on July 7, 1999 intent on enhancing the cave as a historic commercial attraction and developing a national museum for the show cave industry. After an owners’ meeting three months later, Stanley Sides and Gordon Smith began removing rocks from a crevice in the backyard. The bottom fell out to subsequently reveal a shaft leading to 250 feet of cave passages not yet connected to Diamond Caverns. The next day, October 9, 1999 Cave Research Foundation cavers Dave West, Karen Willmes, Joyce Hoffmaster and Joanne Jones enlarged a low crawlway dig Gary Berdeaux and Gordon Smith had begun under Diamond Cavern’s Rotunda room. Three hours of claustrophobic digging in a constricted crawlway resulted in the discovery of several hundred feet of beautifully decorated virgin passages including the largest room yet found in Diamond Caverns. This New Discovery remains undeveloped and pristine with restricted access.

Today, historic Diamond Caverns is the second oldest show cave in the Central Kentucky Cave Region, and fourth oldest operating commercial cave in the United States. The passages have been altered little despite a rich one hundred forty year history of visitors enjoying the best decorated show cave in the State of Kentucky. Diamond Caverns is within the Mammoth Cave Area International Biosphere Reserve and is surrounded by Mammoth Cave National Park, a World Heritage Site.

Suggested reading:

Map used with permission of the National Speleological Society (www.caves.org).

Gorin, Franklin. The Times of Long Ago. John P. Morton and Company, Louisville, 1929. Bicentennial Edition Reprint, 1992. 142 pp.

Kieth, Jean E. “Joseph Rogers Underwood—Friend of African Colonization.” Filson Club History Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 2, April, 1948, pp. 117-132.

Priest, Nancy L. “Joseph Rogers Underwood: Nineteenth Century Kentucky Orator.” The Register, Kentucky Historical Society, October, 1977, pp. 79-97.

Ward, L.E., “A Subterranean Adventure in Diamond Caverns.” Bulletin Number Six of the National Speleological Society, July, 1944, pp. 6-24, 37.

Ward, L.E., “More Subterranean Adventures.” Bulletin Number Seven of the National Speleological Society, December, 1945, pp. 19-33, 56.

Wright, Charles W. Guidebook for the Diamond Cave. Charles G. Smith, Printer, Glasgow, Ky, 1860. 16pp.