Ronceverte, West Virginia - Organ Cave

Ronceverte, West Virginia - Organ Cave

Showroom dummies enliven the tour of this natural nuclear survival bunker. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Ronceverte, West Virginia - Organ Cave - Female Mannequins

Your description from the brochure is fairly accurate. The formations in the Organ Cave are a little disappointing. The formation for which the cave gets its name is now "dead" from decades of tourists touching it. They offer an 8-hour, crawl-on-your-belly, advanced-spelunker-type tour to more remote areas of the caverns with better formations.

They showed us the spot where Thomas Jefferson dug up the giant sloth. Inside the cave, near the entrance, was a large shed where supplies were stored in case the cave needed to be used as a fallout shelter.

The cave was more interesting from a historical point-of-view. There were 30+ wooden "mangers" left by the Confederates during the Civil War. They would place ore in these cribs in the process of extracting the saltpeter.

The most bizarre aspect was the placement of mannequins throughout the cave. They were dressed as confederates soldiers engaged in the mining operations. A couple were placed high up in crevices to act as "sentries." Despite being dressed as soldiers and covered with facial hair, they used female mannequins because, as the guide explained, male mannequins were more expensive. [Nathan L. Forrider, 08/10/2002]