Higgenbotham’s Cave

Higgenbotham’s Cave is a Tennessee historical marker in Warren County.

Warren Co, TN 8, 200 feet east of Collins River Bridge

Get directions ↗Start a road trip Historical trails

Located in Cardwell Mountain, two miles north, the cave was discovered in ca. 1810 by Aaron Higgenbotham, early surveyor and turnpike builder. For over a century the cave has been renowned for its vastness and rare formations. Higgenbotham built a road nearby, over which Cherokees descended the mountain while on the Trail of Tears in 1838. During the Civil War saltpeter was mined in the cave for the manufacture of Confederate gunpowder.

TodayHistorical map

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David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1796 · Map of The Tennassee (sic) Government. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1797 · Tennassee Government. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1809 · United States of America, southern part. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1814 · Kentucky (Mathew Carey, 1814) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1829 · Tennessee (A. Finley, 1829) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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Marker text and location from the Tennessee Historical Commission, as the Commission publishes them on its marker map.

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