Sauta Cave

Blowing Wind Cave

Useful Information

Location:	11 km west of Scottsboro, AL, on Lee Highway, I72.
Open:	No restrictions. Cave closed. [2011]
Fee:	free. [2011]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	n/a
Dimension:
Guided tours:	n/a
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:	Dwight Cooley, Project Leader, 2700 Refuge Headquarters Rd., Decatur, AL 35603, Tel: +1-256-353-7243, Fax: +1-256-340-9728. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

Civil War	used as a saltpeter mine.
1920s	used as a nightclub.
1960s	fallout shelter installed.
1978	Sauta Cave purchased and NWR established.
1999	cave and refuge renamed from Blowing Wind Cave to Sauta Cave.

Description

Sauta Cave was formerly known as Blowing Wind Cave. It is located at Sauta Cave National Wildlife Refuge, which protects about 1 km² of hardwood forest. The refuge was created to protect both flora and fauna, the federally endangered Price’s potato bean and the federally endangered gray bat and Indiana bat and their critical habitat. Additionally there are endemic cave animals found in the cave.

The cave had been used for many purposes during the centuries, like most caves with bat guano it was used as a saltpeter mine during the Civil War. It was also used as a nightclub during the roaring 1920s. An like so many other caves it was equipped with a fallout shelter during the 1960s, at the peak of the third war fears. Finally it was purchased by the state and converted into a National Wildlife Refuge.

Today the cave is completely closed, there is no way to enter it. The trail on wooden planks leads to the cave entrance and ends at a platform in front of the portal. The main sight of the cave is the bat flight in the evening. From June through August about 200,000 gray bats roost in the cave. Every evening at dusk they emerge from the cave, which takes about one hour. The dark clouds of bats emerging from the cave are a unique experience.