The limestone from which Carlsbad Caverns are made is hundreds of millions of years old. The caverns themselves are between 4-6 million years old. Human knowledge about the caves within the boundaries of what is now Carlsbad Caverns National Park dates to at least 3,500 years, as evidenced by the presence of Native American pictographs found at the entrance to Slaughter Canyon Cave, one of the 119 caves within the park. It wasn’t until about 1898 that 16-year-old Jim White is believed to have entered the caves as the first white man (although this is a disputed claim).
The story goes that Jim thought he saw smoke on the horizon and, thinking it was a fire, went to investigate. Instead of smoke, he saw hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats issuing from the natural entrance of Carlsbad Cavern.
Jim decided to do some exploring using a hand-made cable ladder and a primitive lantern. His various journeys through the cave took him from the huge (smelly) deposits of bat guano at the natural entrance down 750 feet to what he named the “Big Room.”
Several years later, one Abijah Long heard about the cave, talked to Jim, then filed a claim to mine the cave for its guano, which was used as a high-grade, nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Long hired Jim to be a foreman, and he remained in that role for 20 years, weathering through the different owners of the guano mining operation.
In 1915, photographer Ray V. Davis captured monochrome images of the cave, sparking public interest after the New York Times published some of Davis' work in 1923. This led to the surveying and mapping of the caverns several months later. On October 25, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge signed the legislation establishing Carlsbad Cave National Monument
The caves were explored extensively by Dr. Willis T. Lee and Jim White in 1924, and by 1925 a staircase was installed from the natural entrance to the Bat Cave so tourists could see the cave interior for themselves. Prior to the staircase, a guano bucket fitting two people was used to enter the caverns. For a time, the natural entrance was called the "Road to Hell.”
As progress was continuously made to explore the caverns, dirt paths were created for the Main Corridor, Kings Palace, Queens Chamber, and parts of the Big Room and an electric lighting system was implemented for the Main Corridor and Kings Palace in 1926.
Renovations continued over the years and Congress redesignated the national monument as a national park in May 1930. By January of 1932, the park’s 750-foot (229 m) elevator was operating after a year of construction. Two more elevators were added in the mid-1950s.
In December 1955, the caverns were declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Up until 1967, visitors to the park could only take ranger-guided tours into the Big Room. In June 1967, self-guided trips through the Big Room were begun, with rangers standing at key points to explain those particular parts of the cave. In 1972, self-guided tours of the entire cavern, from the natural entrance to and through the Big Room were initiated, so now you can either take the elevator in the visitor center directly down to the Big Room, or walk along the guard railed trail from the natural entrance down to the Big Room.
And what happened to Jim White during all of this? Did he just fade out of existence as a guano mining foreman? Nope. Jim continued to play pivotal roles in relation to Carlsbad Caverns. During 1923, he was issued a permit by National Park Service (NPS)Director Stephen Mather to operate the now-national monument (at his own expense, of course) and was later appointed Chief Ranger in 1926 after the NPS took over operations. Jim died in 1946 and there is a bronze plaque dedicated to him in the park’s visitor center lobby, as well as a 14-foot bronze statue of him standing outside the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Fun Fact: During June 1959, portions of the motion picture Journey to the Center of the Earth with Pat Boone and James Mason, were filmed in the Kings Palace and Boneyard at Carlsbad Cavern.
- By Rebecca Latson - April 28th, 2026 9:20am
