Cumberland Caverns
1437 Cumberland Caverns Rd, McMinnville, TN
McMinnville, TN
Miles of passages beneath the Cumberland Plateau leading to a chandelier-lit underground ballroom where bands play deep below the surface.
Cumberland Caverns is one of the largest and longest cave systems in the United States, a labyrinth of passages, chambers, and underground streams winding for miles beneath the Cumberland Plateau near McMinnville. Guided tours lead visitors past soaring rooms, glittering formations, and deep pools into a hidden world that took millions of years to form.
Its most famous feature is the Volcano Room, an enormous underground chamber hung with a huge crystal chandelier, once salvaged from a grand hotel, that has become the setting for concerts held deep below the earth. The combination of natural grandeur and that improbable ballroom makes Cumberland Caverns one of the most distinctive attractions in Tennessee.
What Guests Love
- Descending into one of the largest and longest caves in the United States
- The Volcano Room ballroom, hung with a huge crystal chandelier deep underground
- Concerts held far beneath the surface in the cave's great chamber
- Guided tours past towering formations, underground pools, and vast rooms
Worth Knowing
- The cave stays cool year round, so bring a light jacket even in summer
- Tours involve walking and some stairs and uneven ground, so wear sturdy shoes
- Concerts and special tours sell out, so book well ahead if you want a show
- It is a working show cave, so visits are guided; check the day's tour schedule
Details
McMinnville, TN
Learn about Cumberland Caverns
The story of the cave
The cave was discovered in the early nineteenth century by a surveyor exploring the plateau, and over the following decades it drew explorers, saltpeter miners, and curious locals into its depths. Saltpeter, a mineral used to make gunpowder, was mined from cave sediments here in earlier eras, and traces of that work remain in the passages. For generations the cave was known by several names before it was developed and mapped as the extensive system understood today.
In the twentieth century the cave was opened for guided tours and grew into a popular show cave, with pathways, lighting, and interpretation added to make its grandest rooms accessible. Ongoing exploration continued to reveal new passages, and the total mapped length made it one of the longest known caves in the country.
The Volcano Room
The cave's signature space is the Volcano Room, a vast underground chamber whose ceiling soars high overhead. Its centerpiece is an enormous crystal chandelier, said to have come from a grand hotel, hanging incongruously in the depths of the earth and lending the room the air of a hidden ballroom.
That setting inspired one of the cave's best-known traditions, a series of concerts staged in the chamber, where audiences sit far below the surface to hear music in a space with remarkable natural acoustics. Playing or hearing a show in the Volcano Room is a genuinely unusual experience, and it has drawn performers and fans from far and wide.
Underground on a tour
Guided tours lead visitors through the developed sections of the cave, past towering stalactites and stalagmite formations, flowstone draperies, underground pools, and rooms on a scale that is hard to grasp until you are standing in them. Guides explain how the limestone was slowly dissolved by water over eons to carve the passages and how the formations grow drop by drop.
For those wanting more adventure, longer and wilder tours venture beyond the paved routes into rougher parts of the system, and overnight caving experiences let groups sleep underground. The cave's constant cool temperature makes it a comfortable escape from summer heat and a refuge in any season.
The plateau above
Cumberland Caverns lies in a corner of Middle Tennessee rich in outdoor attractions, on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau. The nearby town of McMinnville is known as the nursery capital for its many plant growers, and the surrounding countryside is dotted with farms and rolling hills.
Waterfalls and parks abound in the region, from the gorge and cascades of Rock Island State Park to the tall falls of Fall Creek Falls, making the cave an easy centerpiece for a longer plateau exploration that mixes the underground with the scenery above.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Riverhouse at the Park
Honorable Mention205 Ski Mountain Rd, Gatlinburg, TN
121 miles away|Learn More ›
Things to Do Near McMinnville
Rock Island State Park
About 15 miles
A dramatic gorge where rivers meet, with waterfalls, an old cotton mill, and swimming below the dam.
McMinnville
About 6 miles
A Middle Tennessee town known as the nursery capital, with a historic downtown and surrounding farm country.
Fall Creek Falls State Park
About 30 miles
Home to one of the tallest waterfalls in the eastern United States, set in a large plateau park of gorges and trails.