The Secrets of the Lost Sea

by Jennifer Crutchfield

The entrance to the Lost Sea attraction is the start of a tour that goes hundreds of feet underground and through thousands of years of history.

Ben Sands grew up hearing stories about a magnificent underground lake. Pioneers in the area around Sweetwater, Tenn. had been weaving stories around Craighead Caverns since they came to settle there in 1820. Named for its earliest owner, the Cherokee Chief Craighead, the caverns were central to local lore, fables from Cherokee history mixing with Civil War tales, spy intrigue, saltpeter mining and pioneering power. Young Ben often entered the caverns along with his father, who guided groups hunting for arrowheads there.

In 1905, 13-year-old Ben was exploring the caves on his own when he ventured further than ever before. Pushing past a shallow pool in a familiar chamber, he crawled through a small underwater opening in the chamber wall to emerge in a vast, dark cavern with a lake so large that he couldn’t find its end. The young boy threw mud balls in every direction, hoping to find the edge of the amazing lake—but he heard only splashes and the echo of his efforts. Ben wouldn’t know for decades that he had discovered the largest underground lake in the United States, the second largest in the world—a 4½-acre body of water, 300 feet beneath the earth’s surface.

Imagine that young explorer’s joy as he returned to his family and classmates to share his discoveries! History comes alive for explorers, whatever their ages. To young Ben, when he made his awesome discovery, the shadows in that marvelous lake room must have danced with the ghosts of the Cherokee councils, Union spies and Confederate miners who had been there years before.

The skepticism of adults, plus droughts that caused the pool to fluctuate, kept people from believing Ben’s story about a “lost sea” for years.

In 1915, with Prohibition coming, a developer purchased the caverns, creating a dance floor, tavern and entertainment venue in the series of caves, some already occupied by moonshiners.

Earlier “cave men”

Relics, pottery, weapons and jewelry bear testament to the Cherokee use of the caverns as an important meeting site, and the massive tracks of a giant Pleistocene jaguar tell a tale of a 500-pound animal who lost his way in the in the caves over 20,000 years ago. In the 1820s, pioneers took advantage of the caverns’ constant 58 degree temperature to store their roots and vegetables.

During the Civil War the caves were a critical source of the saltpeter necessary for the manufacture of gunpowder. Diaries from the era reveal the critical importance that mining in the caves played in the war effort. One diary entry tells the tale of a Union spy, caught and shot trying to blow up the cave’s entrance to keep valuable saltpeter from the guns of Confederate soldiers.

Scientists have confirmed that some initials on the cave walls were “painted” with the carbon of a soldier’s torch—providing another layer of authentic 1863 history hundreds of feet underground. The Confederate soldiers who volunteered for the dangerous duty of distributing the gunpowder were legendary for their courage, and the miners were known among soldiers for working days and nights without sleep to keep the Confederate guns blazing with Tennessee Valley saltpeter.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, the caverns became home to several businesses that created more connections to Sweetwater’s southern neighbor, Chattanooga. Manure from Fort Oglethorpe’s Sixth Cavalry fed a mushroom farm in the caverns in the 1930s, and the Tennessee Power Company, a Chattanooga creation, installed a revolutionary lighting system in Craighead Caverns during the 1920s. With its holding building in what we now know as Parkway Towers (the blight at the edge of Finley Field), the Tennessee Power Company worked with farmers in the rural Sweetwater area to cut poles and provide the right-of-ways that brought them electric service.

Ben’s “Lost Sea” rediscovered

Ben Sands was an old man when the underground lake in Craighead Caverns was rediscovered; he was honored as its first official visitor and was asked to name it. More than 50 years had passed, but the amazing lake Ben called the “Lost Sea” was finally found, and it became a leading attraction in the Tennessee Valley, drawing visitors from around the world.

Since its rediscovery, divers have measured and explored the Lost Sea. The surface of the lake measures 800 feet long and 220 feet wide, and the water is home to ghostly monsters, trout who have grown to several feet long and who have lost much of their color in their habitat 300 feet under the earth’s surface.

Now tour boats skim the spooky surface of the Lost Sea, gliding past amazing rock formations, dancing lights and other fascinating sights that tell the tale every child wants to hear: Wondrous discoveries can still be made, and our valley is a great place to make them.