History & Culture

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Hidden beneath the desert of southeastern New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns reveals a vast underground world shaped by ancient seas, Indigenous presence, and human discovery.

History of the Park

Human interaction with the Carlsbad Caverns region stretches back thousands of years. Indigenous peoples, including the Mescalero Apache, lived and traveled through the surrounding desert, using caves and rock shelters for refuge, navigation, and survival in an arid landscape. While the deep caverns were not fully explored by Indigenous groups, the land above and around the caves was an important part of seasonal movement, hunting, and trade.

In the late 19th century, European-American settlers and ranchers began encountering the caverns. The most famous early explorer was Jim White, a local cowboy who began exploring and promoting the caves in the 1890s, helping draw national attention to their immense scale and beauty. Recognizing the site’s significance, President Woodrow Wilson designated Carlsbad Caverns a National Monument in 1923. Continued exploration revealed the cave system’s extraordinary size and scientific value, leading President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish Carlsbad Caverns National Park in 1930.

National Park Sign

Park Culture

Learn about the local culture surrounding this park.

Carlsbad Caverns is best known for the Big Room, one of the largest cave chambers in North America, along with hundreds of other chambers formed over millions of years. Unlike many limestone caves shaped primarily by flowing water, Carlsbad Caverns developed largely through sulfuric acid dissolution, creating massive spaces, dramatic formations, and an underground landscape unlike any other in the national park system.

Culturally, the park represents curiosity, exploration, and stewardship beneath the surface. The nightly bat flights—where hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats emerge at dusk—connect geology with living ecology, reminding visitors that the caverns are part of a dynamic system rather than a static relic. Today, Carlsbad Caverns stands as both a scientific treasure and a place of quiet wonder, where human history unfolds not across the land, but deep below it.

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