Dunbar Cave Closes For The Bats Each Fall. That's When Its Ranger Brings Out The Lost History.

How do you lose a house so completely that no one remembers it ever existed? What about people's graves?

Dunbar Cave State Park asks those questions in its description of a talk on Sunday, Nov. 22, about a clubhouse and graves it calls "long forgotten until now." Parts of the park's history are still turning up. The cave closes to tours for the winter, and that's when the park presents what it has been piecing together. For anyone on the Rossview Road side of Clarksville who thinks of Dunbar Cave as a summer outing, November is the better month to go.

The Cave Goes Quiet So The Bats Can Sleep

Tennessee State Parks runs Dunbar Cave tours from May through the end of September. Going inside takes a paid tour ticket, and the park recommends reserving because tours often sell out. On the tour page, the standard Enter the Underworld tour is $18 for adults 13 and older and $13 for children 5 to 12. The page doesn't say which season those prices apply to, so check them before tours open in May.

The state explains the winter closure on its caving page. Caves close for the cold months so threatened bats can hibernate undisturbed. In 2010, a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome was found in Tennessee's cave bats. The state says the tri-colored bat and the little brown bat have declined so far that they may be headed toward extinction.

The park stays open while the cave is closed. Ranger Adam Neblett takes over the visitor center at 401 Old Dunbar Cave Road, and the program list looks very different from summer's ticketed tours.

Seven Dates On The November Calendar

Every program below meets at the visitor center.

The state's reservation calendar lists History of Dunbar Cave and Missing Houses and Forgotten Graves as free, with registration closing the day of each event. The Thanksgiving hike is also free but requires registration, with optional donations of $10 or $20. Every event page carries the same caution: schedules can change, so contact the park or the program leader before you go. Reservations go through 1-888-867-2757.

Two Of These Talks Are Built On New Findings

The park bills two of its programs, The Cave Hotel and Missing Houses and Forgotten Graves, as "A Dunbar Cave Mystery." Both descriptions say the same thing: "While much of the cave's history is known, sometimes new information comes to light."

The Nov. 15 talk asks where the cave's 1800s hotels stood and what happened to them. The Nov. 22 talk covers the Dunbar Cave Clubhouse and the Dunbar graves, which the park says were "long forgotten until now." Both run 30 minutes, which makes them easy to fit into a Sunday afternoon.

The research continues inside the cave too. In November 2025, Main Street Clarksville reported on a tour that State Sen. Bill Powers, Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts and Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden took to see flood damage. Floodwater had lifted and shifted the boardwalks inside the cave. Park Manager David Britton, who manages both Dunbar Cave and Port Royal State Parks, showed the officials the damage. In the same report, State Archeologist and Director Phillip Hodge said the state was studying the chemical and molecular makeup of the Mississippian charcoal drawings. The drawings are said to be about 800 years old, and so far the water had not affected them. Britton said the state parks department hoped to share the findings with the public once the research was assessed.

That means the cave art on the summer tours was under study as recently as last fall. The Nov. 14 program, A Sacred Place, covers that art and how it has been interpreted. The park describes the cave as a sacred place to Indigenous people for at least 10,000 years, and still sacred today.

Affricanna Town Sits On A Citywide Trail

The Affricanna Town tour covers a part of the park's history most visitors don't know. According to the park, thousands of people fleeing slavery came to Clarksville between 1863 and 1865 to reach Union Army lines. Some formed self-governing communities where they lived in freedom for the first time, and Affricanna Town was one of them, near Dunbar Cave. The tour lasts about an hour and covers roughly half a mile on paved paths.

The site is also part of something bigger. In March 2025, Clarksville Online reported that Visit Clarksville had expanded its African American Legacy Trail to more than 40 stops, and Affricanna Town near Dunbar Cave is one of them. If you've already followed parts of that trail around town, this tour gives you the in-person version of one stop.

The tour runs twice, on Nov. 1 and Nov. 28. The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the date for anyone who missed the first one or wants to bring visiting family.

Thanksgiving Week Puts It All Together

If you can only make one program, make it the Day After Thanksgiving Hike. The park's description runs from Indigenous people through the resorts of the 19th and 20th centuries and notes that evidence of that use is still visible throughout the park. Ranger Adam leads the 2.75-mile hike around the property to show how the land has been used.

The talks earlier in the month cover one piece of the story each. For a fuller picture before the hike, this order works:

1. A Sacred Place, Nov. 14. The oldest layer, with the cave art at the center.
2. The Cave Hotel, Nov. 15. The 1800s hotels and their fate.
3. History of Dunbar Cave, Nov. 21. How the cave grew into a major tourist attraction, and how its decline led to a state park that protects what the park calls one of the most important cultural resources in Tennessee.
4. Missing Houses and Forgotten Graves, Nov. 22. The clubhouse and graves that had been lost to memory.
5. Day After Thanksgiving Hike, Nov. 27. The same stories, walked on the ground where they happened.
6. Affricanna Town, Nov. 28. A shorter walk the next day for anyone who still has energy.

After the first two weekends, you'll recognize what the hike is pointing at.

Between Programs, The Trails Are Open

The park's hiking page lists five named routes, all marked open, and more than three miles of connected trail in total.

• Dunbar's Path: 1.10 miles
• Grassland Trail: 0.75 mile
• Flint Knapper Trail: 0.55 mile
• Resort Trail: 0.45 mile
• Trailhead Connector: 0.15 mile

The park overview warns that the Lake Trail can flood in heavy rain, so check the weather if it has rained during the week.

The visitor center also has a year-round virtual reality experience. It costs $9 per person, is open to ages 10 and up, and runs on demand during park office hours. It's the closest thing to going underground before the cave reopens in May.

Coming from the Rossview Road side, you may hit a different intersection than you remember. In April 2026, Clarksville Now reported that the Rossview Road and Dunbar Cave Road realignment near Exit 8 was almost finished. The project removed the offset where Cardinal Lane met Dunbar Cave Road and added a traffic signal. The old stretch of Dunbar Cave Road was renamed Cavern Court and now dead-ends.

We live and work in Clarksville too, and we can't promise how far any of your visiting relatives will hike after Thanksgiving dinner. If questions about the neighborhoods around Dunbar Cave come up on the walk back to the car, Make Clarksville Home is happy to talk through them. Schedule a free consultation whenever it suits you.