Howe Caverns: The coming of the railroad

Happy New Year from all of us at Howe Caverns. We are open every day 9AM to 5PM, HOWEVER, the boat ride portion of the tour will not be available Jan 5-8 & Jan 12-15 for annual maintenance. Only the walking tour which shows 90% of the caverns will be available those days. GO UNDERGROUND... We are the warmest place to be in the winter in the great northeast as it is always 52 degrees. After your tour try out our gemstone mining and geode cutting. Stop in our Sweet Shop for our homemade fudge, truffles and a cup of Starbucks coffee. We have quite a collection of souvenirs and gifts in our Gift Shop. Stay overnight at our motel.

Visitors sometimes were entertained with underground musical concerts in the Music Room

Visitors were provided with suitable clothing for the caverns trip through mud, clay and 42-degree water. This group stands in Washington Hall.

> 1. The pre-Civil War era

> 2. The Coming of the Railroad

> 3. Lester Howe's Legacy

The Coming of the Railroad

The coming of the railroad prompted great excitement, and many more visitors could come tour the cave, arriving at the station established at Howe's Cave, an easy walk to the Cave House Hotel. The number of guests increased steadily. Howe's Cave became a leading New York attraction, second only to Niagara Falls, as it is today.

Howe prospered. He continued to add to his property and make improvements to the cave, seriously overextending himself in the process. Then in January of 1872, the second Cave Hotel burned, and at about the same time, the public's interest in caves waned. With the number of visitors declining steadily, Howe entered into a joint stock agreement with railroad magnate/politician Joseph H. Ramsey and two other partners to keep his small empire afloat and finance a third construction of the hotel. Ramsey was an astute businessman (and the president of the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad) and realized the value of Howe's Cave for other, more industrial purposes: there was a huge market for cement and plaster as building material, and the limestone of Howe's Cave would be worth a small fortune. Ramsey, on several occasions, offered to buy Howe's interest in the cave, but Howe refused. He loved the caverns too deeply. Finally, when Howe was 59 and increasingly eccentric, Ramsey succeeded.

Howe retired to his property across the valley. From his front porch, he watched train cars of visitors load and unload at the Howes Cave depot and watched smoke rise from the cement kilns. For the next 45 years, no one toured Howe's underground world. It would take a new generation of explorers to bring back Howe's Cave for all the world to see.

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