Marengo Cave ( Indiana )

Early history  Marengo Cave was discovered September 6, 1883 by Orris and Blanche Heistand, brother and sister. Orris was 11 years old, his older sister Blanche was 15. Blanche worked as a cook at the local Marengo Academy and had heard some of the boys discussing a sinkhole they had found in the woods nearby. They suspected it might lead to a cave and were talking of returning with lanterns later.Blanche decided to beat the boys to it. She ran home from school that day, enlisted her brother Orris, took two candles and set off into the woods. The children crawled down a narrow passageway, approximately 50 feet long, and were the first humans known to set foot in Marengo Cave. Awed by what they had seen but quickly becoming afraid of the darkness they retreated back to the surface.Three days later they notified the land owner, Samuel Stewart, whose land they had been trespassing on when they discovered the cave. The kids thought they had found diamonds because of the sparkling flowstone formations their candles revealed briefly while they were inside the cave. Believing the cave to possibly contain diamonds, Stewart quickly organized a group of men from the town and explored the cavern. Guided tours started soon afterwards for one quarter per person.The Stewart family continued ownership of the cave until 1955 when Floyd Denton purchased the cave with great plans for development. Unfortunately, his plans were cut short when he died of a stroke in 1961. The present ownership purchased the cave in 1973 during the period when Interstate 64 was being constructed through southern Indiana. With better roads, an increasingly mobile population and aggressive promotion and quality improvements, the cave business began to grow again. The cave and surrounding park have grown nearly continuously the past 30 years.