Laurel Caverns

Laurel Hill Cave - Delaney's Cave - Dulany's Cave

Useful Information

Location:	1065 Skyline Drive, Farmington, PA 15437. From Uniontown east on Highway 40, after 10 km turn right on Skyline drive 2001 at Historic Summit Inn, after 8 km turn right to cave. Signposted. (39.7997773, -79.7116259)
Open:	MAY to OCT daily 9-16. No online booking available. [2024]
Fee:	Adults USD 17, Children (12-17) USD 13, Children (5-11) USD 11, Children (0-4) USD 3, Seniors (65+) USD 15. Grottos of Learning: Adults USD 7. Groups (15+): Adults USD 6. [2024]
Classification:	Karst Cave Mississippian Loyalhanna limestone. Cave Replica
Light:	Incandescent Coloured Light
Dimension:	L=4,972 m, VR=136 m, T=12 °C.
Guided tours:	D=55 min.
Photography:
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:	Kevin Patrick (2004): Pennsylvania Caves & other rocky roadside wonders, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pa, USA, 248 pp, illus. p 10, 19, 22-23, 26, 31, 70-73, 75, 79, 89-90, 162-65, 167-68, 169, 175-176, 220, 226. Ralph W Stome (1932): Pennsylvania Caves, Pennsylvania Geological Survey Fourth Series, Bulletin G3, p 70-75, survey, 5 photos.
Address:	Laurel Caverns, P.O. Box 62, Hopwood, PA 15445, Tel: +1-724-438-3003, Tel: +1-724-437-7527.
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

1794	Richard Freeman first owner by lot drawing from the Commonwealth.
1794	John Delaney purchases the neighbouring lot with a limestone quarry.
1798	cave first mentioned in a newspaper article.
1802	two Smithfield men who become lost in the cave for three days.
1814	John Delaney purchases the area around the cave entrance and extends his farm, the farm gets known as Delaney's Cave by the locals.
1816	first described by John Paxton as Laurel Hill Cave.
1926	Roy and Norman Cale buy Delaney's Cave and make a car park near the entrance.
1933	cave explored and surveyed by Ralph “Buzz” Bossart, a Civil Engineer unemployed due to the Depression.
08-APR-1936	plane crash of a DC-2 near the cave entrance.
01-JUL-1964	opened to the public by Norman Cale and renamed Laurel Caverns.
1969	Norman E. Cale Visitors’ Center built.
1993	rappelling cliff named Ed Coll Cliff built in the cave.
1999	cave replica named Kavernputt built, which is wheelchair accessible.
2004	Tyler Grimm Cliff and climbing wall added inside the cave.

Description

Laurel Caverns is located on Chestnut Ridge at the head of Cave Hollow. The cave formed in an unusual sort of limestone containing a high amount of quartz aka silica. This mineral is not soluble in water under the conditions of karst, so it remains nearly unchanged when the limestone is dissolved. The silica minerals form a fine sediment on the cavern floor, looking rather similar to beach sand.

The upper level of the cave is looking like a maze, with passages in two main directions with 90° in between. So the survey of this level looks similar to the map of an American city. The passages are tilted with about 15°, following the layers of the limestone, which is a little irritating at first. The regular tours show this level of the cave. The guided tour is only 180 m long, but it is actually level and thus wheelchair accessible.

The lower level is mainly a spacious meandering passageway with the typical quartz sand on the floor. This part of the cave may be visited on cave trekking tours with flashlights and caving equipment. Once this level was visited in self-guided cave trekking tours, furnished with a cave map. Today the cave trekking tours are guided.

Former names of Laurel Caverns are Laurel Hill Cave and Delaney's Cave, also spelt De Laney, Delany and Dulany. The cave is visited on three different variations of the same tour. The normal tour is guided and takes about 30 minutes, then there is the self-guided tour, and finally the special tour for boy scoutsand school groups. While the content is different, the shown cave is the same as well as the entrance fee.

The cave is quite exceptional, with its unique geology, the quartz sand, the strange forms of the walls which are a result of the combination of erosion with different layers of limestone. The cave has almost no speleothems, which is quite uniqe and refreshing, this is definitely not the standard cave. Nevertheless, it seems the most important fact about the cave, which is told first on almost any webpage, is that it is the longest cave of Pennsylvania. And that's actually nonsense. According to the official NSS list of longest caves Sarah Furnace Cave aka Porter's Cave is 15,300 m long and is the only cave in Pennsylvania which is actually listed. Laurel Caverns is only 4,972 m long, which is only one third, and is not even listed, as only caves longer than 10 km are on the list.

The cave was known to the native American for an unknown period of time. Numerous arrowheads have been found around the entrance. The first settler in the area was James Downard who was quarrying the limestone about 600 m to the south. But he did not own the cave. The lot with the cave on it was given to Richard Freeman by lot drawing from the Commonwealth in 1794. This was a special thing for some time: lots of land were issued in a sort of lottery, the people owned the land before they were even there. Obviously a try by the government to make the hunt and claiming of land less deadly. On the other hand the new owners were probably not happy with their land and so many sold it again soon after seeing it. The same in this case, a John Delaney purchased the land of James Downard with the quarry in 1794. And in 1814 he bought the land of Richard Freeman with the cave and merged the land. He used it as a farm.

The cave was first mentioned in a newspaper article in 1798. If this was the reason why two men from Smithfield named Crain and Simmons explored the cave in 1802 is unknown. But they were not well-prepared and were lost in the cave for three days. This caused a rescue operation and a lot of newspaper articles about the cave. The two men were finally found, they were waiting for the end in each other's arms. As a consequence the cave entrance was sealed for many years.

In 1816 the first geologic survey of western Pennsylvania took place at the cave. John Paxton, a Philadelphia journalist, and several prominent citizens of Uniontown visited the cave. Paxton actually named the cave Laurel Hill Cave and wrote a detailed article about the exploration of the cave. He mentions that many walls were covered with names and marks made with coal, obviously the cave had become quite popular, there was even a trail to the cave from Fairchance. He also mentioned the name Crain but either did not know about the event or chose to not mention it.

When John Delaney died in 1823 the farm was abandoned, and in 1836 the heirs sold the farm. But despite the name given by the Journalist, the locals called the cave Delaney’s Cave, and this name stuck for more than a century. The farm was owned by different investors, some of them were quite famous. It seems those owners never visited the cave, but still there was some exploration going on, unfortunately nothing was published. In 1851, William Humbert purchased the Delaney farm for USD 350, erected a cabin, and farmed the land. He and later his son Randolph Humbert operated the farm until 1890, then the family moved to nearby Haydentown and the farm was operated from there. During the mid and late 19th century numerous hotels and resorts were built along U.S. Route 40. They offered regular excursions to the cave, early spelunking tours into the still undeveloped cave. In 1926 there were three Humbert heirs, and two of them decided to sell their third of the land. Roy Cale from Uniontown and his cousin Norman Cale formed a partnership to buy the cave. Ralph “Buzz” Bossart was a Civil Engineer but due to the Depression he was unemployed. He had visited the cave since 1921, but now he decided to move to the cave in 1933 and spend the whole summer surveying and mapping the cave. He guided visitors and noted that he had 1,720 visitors in this summer. Because of his survey it became clear that the cave was much bigger than the land of the Cale's, and in the U.S.A. that's a big problem in the case of commercial use. So they purchased hundreds of acres until they finally owned the whole cave in 1936.

In 1936 one of the worst civilian plane crashes of that decade took place only a few hundred meters from the cave entrance. A Trans-Western DC-2, dubbed “Sunracer”, crashed on a flight from Newark to Pittsburgh. The stewardess Nellie Granger survived, and she walked for miles to find help, this walk made her nationally famous. Unfortunately the other two survivors died days later from their injuries, and so 13 people died in the crash, including some students from the Valley Forge Military Academy.

As we already mentioned the cave was more or less a show cave since the resorts of the area offered cave trips in the 19th century. The development of the cave as a real show cave was discussed many times over the decades, the first time this was done publicly was in an 1886 article in an Uniontown newspaper. Norman Cale finally decided to develop the cave in 1961 at the age of 68. He started together with his grandson and “Buzz” Bossart in May 1962, and they developed a short section of the cave. As it was far from the next village there was neither phone nor electricity. For the cave light they installed a diesel generator. Two artificial entrance tunnels were dug, and the cave was developed from these tunnels, the natural entrance was left unchanged. A lot of sand had to be removed, trails paved, and electric light installed. The cave was opened as a show cave on 01-JUL-1964.

Quite extraordinary are numerous extensions which were created for educational reasons. So the cave has climbing walls and rapelling cliffs which allow coursed for groups, school classes and Scouts. And as the cave is not suitable for disabed, the owners created a huge replica cave on the surface which is fully accessible. It was opened with the name Kavernputt, but it seems it was renamed Grottos of Learning since then.