I took a side trip to Lost World Caverns outside Lewisburg while in West Virginia. Although these were not found until 1942, caves like Lost World were wildly popular tourist attractions in the nineteenth century for day trips away from mountain resorts. Such places were featured prominently in Edward Beyer's Album of Virginia and other period illustrations presenting them as natural wonders.
The first access into Lost World Caverns was through a long vertical drop in the ground but another entry was dug out for easier walk-in access during the 1970s. The tunnels are known to meander for a mile but they go even further with an unseen stream being heard below them. It is thought that an even larger network of caverns exists under most of the region but this has been inaccessible to date. Despite humanity having mapped so much of the world's surface, it is mindboggling to think about how much has not been documented yet and may never really be explored.
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