BRANSON, Mo. -- There's something inviting about a big hole in the ground, says spelunker Russell Stephenson. Most people can't pass by without at least poking their heads inside and having a look around.
And then there are those who have to climb in and keep going, sometimes for miles, until they've seen every stalagmite and stalactite.Missouri, with more than 5,000 documented caves, is the place to be for these folks. Stephenson, a guide at Branson's Marvel Cave, is definitely one of them.
"I guess it's the adventure of it, that part of going where nobody else has gone before, if I can quote from 'Star Trek,' " Stephenson says with a chuckle. "I know that's part of my experience, going some place where nobody has been and being the first to see it."
Still, caving the spelunker's way isn't everybody's idea of a good time -- squeezing through narrow, unexplored passageways, sometimes slithering on one's belly through mud in search of an opening, and maybe getting lost down there like Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher did.
"It is very dangerous," Stephenson says. "There is water down there, and a passage can collapse."
There are bigger caves outside of Missouri. But for sheer numbers, variety and the opportunity to safely see everything from Jesse James' hideout to what was once a giant bat guano mine, this part of the country can't be beat.
Says Kirk Hansen of Springfield's Fantastic Caverns: "Some people think if they've seen one cave, they've seen them all. And that's just not true. Every cave is different."
Fantastic Caverns, billed as the only drive-through cave in North America, offers visitors a tram ride in and out.
Marvel Cave requires a good deal of walking downhill, since visitors enter the cave from an Ozark mountain peak inside the Silver Dollar City amusement park. From there, they head 20 stories down along twisting, turning passageways into the Cathedral Room, the world's largest unsupported dome. But there's a train ride back to the surface.
Along with the huge, beautiful formations called stalagmites and stalactites that all the caves have, Meramec Caverns also boasts the hideout of Frank and Jesse James.
The Missouri outlaws are believed to have discovered the cave when they fought for the South during the Civil War, using it years later to elude authorities after bank robberies. Lawmen who followed them to the entrance balked at going inside and never saw them come out.
It's believed now that they divided the loot and swam an underground river to another entrance.
When Marvel opened to the public in 1894, tourists had to walk down a wooden ladder and bring their own lights. It closed soon after for a lack of visitors.
At Fantastic Caverns, the first known explorers were 12 women from Springfield who answered an ad from the cave's owner in 1867. He wanted to know what was down there -- but not firsthand.
Marble Cave was named in the 1860s when its limestone formations were mistaken for marble.
Miners who went into Marble Cave in the 1880s had no interest in the formations, however. They were interested in the bat guano that was said to be 25 feet deep in places and could be used to manufacture gunpowder.