A Cave so Beautiful, it Needs no Name
About 40 miles north of downtown San Antonio, in Kendall County near Boerne, beauty lies deep below ground. The Cave Without a Name is an actively growing limestone grotto so beautiful, it doesn’t even need to have a name.
The exact age of the grotto can only be roughly estimated – experts now assume a period of between 100 and 400 million years. Either way, that’s definitely more than enough time to form some of the largest formations of stalactites and stalagmites in the United States.
Ever since it officially opened in 1939, Cave Without A Name has drawn countless of visitors into its 80 to 100 feet deep chambers.
Officially guided tours of the complex cave system take place every hour between 10 am and 4 pm. A tour is about an hour in length. Exploring the cave starts by descending the 126 steps underground, then takes you through the beautiful six public chambers, and ends at an underground river.
Being submerged below ground comes with its benefits, especially when in relation to the weather. Even when it’s almost unbearable outside on the hottest Texas summer days, temperatures inside the cave average a comfortable 66 degrees Fahrenheit.
Live Concerts
It might sound outlandish at first, but please hear us out: Have you ever attended a concert held in a cave? If your answer is no, then it’s about time to change that.
The cave’s natural shape, particularly that of its ceiling, allows for a very unique sound experience. Particularly that of the Queen’s Throne Room, which plays host to eight to twelve concerts a year. The genres range from simple vocals, flutes to Tibetan singing.
How the Cave Never got its Name
The story behind the cave’s discovery is a rather curious one. Although over the decades a select few people seemed to have known about its existence, everyone just kind of sporadically forgot about it again.
During the prohibition period of around 1920, parts of the upper cave system were even used to distill moonshine.
Yet it took up until the year 1935 for the Cave Without a Name to come to the public’s attention. Three local children stumbled across a sinkhole in the ground while playing. It is believed that these three children were also the first people to enter the main rooms of the intricate cave system.
When holding a contest to find a name for the cave, a little boy approached James L. Horne, then owner of the land that the cave sits under, and suggested that the cave was way too beautiful to even have a name. Horne went with the suggestion and the cave has been known as the Cave Without A Name ever since.
