Dunbar Cave State Park

Dunbar Cave near Clarksville, Tennessee has been a gathering place for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence shows Native Americans used the cave's cool entrance for ceremonies and shelter. In the early twentieth century it became a resort, with a dance pavilion built at the cave mouth that drew big-band performers including Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey.

Country music star Roy Acuff actually owned the property for a period in the nineteen forties and fifties, hosting square dances and radio broadcasts from the cave entrance. The Tennessee state park system acquired it in nineteen seventy-three. Today it protects cave ecosystems and the remains of that unusual mid-century resort, along with a lake formed by a spring that flows from deep inside the mountain.