Mammoth Cave Visitor Center

Mammoth Cave Visitor Center is the park's main orientation building, a large stone center on the slope above the Historic Entrance. This is where you get maps and ranger help, explore exhibits on geology, cave life and human history, browse the park store and meet your cave tour group. All cave tours depart from this area; depending on the route, you may walk to the Historic Entrance or ride a bus to another opening. Reserve a specific tour ahead of time; popular departures can sell out.

The main exhibit route connects cave formation, cave life and the people who entered the cave. A cave model, interactive displays, audio and video, and a small film room about the cave make the geology easier to picture before you head underground. A selective visit can be brief, but if you have time before a tour, the exhibits are worth more than a quick glance.

People entered Mammoth Cave thousands of years before guided tours. Evidence places some of the earliest exploration about 5,000 to 4,000 years ago; by about 1200 BCE, Indigenous people were mining gypsum and related minerals inside. Green River mussel shells served as scrapers for cave wall crust, while cane torches, sandals, gourd bowls and cave art show how people moved through and used the underground passages. The center's history exhibits put that long human presence in view before you enter the cave.

The name refers to the cave's enormous passages. Some of the cave's largest passages began forming about 325 million years ago in limestone karst. That scale is the first thing to picture when the exhibits explain how the cave formed.

The center has LEED Gold certification. A roof light shaft brings daylight inside, rooftop solar supplies about a tenth of its power, and rainwater is reused to flush toilets. About 95 percent of the previous building's materials were reused or recycled during construction.