Following the Keene Family: A Boat Tour of Historic Penn's Cave

I was excited to discover that Penn's Cave is still open and offers the same boat tour that the Keene family went on many years ago

Penns Creek arises out of one end of a large cave hidden under a cornfield. It simply wells up, full blown, almost frighteningly, from somewhere underground. Several times when our girls were young we went to see Penns Cave and take a ride through it by boat. The boat was carried along on the water by that incredible fountain arising from out of the bowels of the Earth.

That passage caught my eye when I was reading Paul Keene’s book Fear Not to Sow Because of the Birds. In an essay from May 1984 titled “Flood!” Keene explains that Penns Creek—which flows past Walnut Acres and gives the nearby town its name—originates in a cave about forty miles upstream from Walnut Acres. When I discovered that Penn’s Cave is still open to the public, I knew that I had to stop there on my way to Walnut Acres in August 2025.

Penn's Cave House was built in 1885 and was likely where the Keene family bought tickets for their cave tours

The approach to Penn’s Cave is stunning. I drive along a valley past tidy white farmhouses, red barns, and pulley clotheslines full of clothes flapping wildly in the breeze. The long valley of cornfields and pastures is framed on both sides by steep, green mountains. Soon I’m at the well-maintained cave property. I park near the historic hotel, Penn’s Cave House, built in 1885. I purchase a ticket from a cheerful clerk in the visitors center and head outside for my cave tour.

The visitors center at Penn's Cave is new since the Keene family visited

One enters by going down a long flight of steps into a mysteriously cool, damp, and somewhat forbidding grotto. Often a bit of shivering seems in order, perhaps attributable to more than the sudden coolness. An iron fence at the entrance of the cave, with a locked gate attached, keeps people from falling into the water. Only in loading or unloading the boat is this gate opened. People wait in hushed quiet for the next trip, their thoughts somewhat pensive and deep.

The stairs and fence are still just like Paul Keene described them

I head down the steep, asphalted path behind the visitor center, then descend the steps to the cave entrance and the locked fence. Several long, narrow boats bob gently at the dock. Paul Keene told a harrowing tale of how his daughter Jocelyn dropped her shoe into the water and he rescued it just before it was swept downstream, but today there is no noticeable current. A few fish pop up and make ripples in the cold, cloudy, blue water.

Penn's Cave is beautifully decorated with formations, including these flowstone draperies

The tour guide opens the gate, and we file onto a long, narrow boat and sit on the benches. Once we’re all seated, she squeezes past us to the front of the boat, turns on the electric motor, and takes us into the cave. We pass some lovely formations—stalactites, draperies, columns, flowstone, and even some small strips of cave bacon. Since Penn’s Cave has been a show cave since 1885, the formations have names like “Garden of the Gods” and “Pillar of Hercules.” Some of the galleries are nearly thirty feet high; in another, we duck to avoid hitting “Headache Rock.”

Another boatload of tourists exits the cave through the carved zig-zag tunnel

Originally, the spring-fed creek exited the cave through an underwater crack. Back in the 1920s, the cave owners carved a navigable, zig-zag exit tunnel at the back of the cave and dammed the river to create a lake in a field behind the cave. We boat around the lake, say hi to some elk that are part of the wildlife park, then head back through the cave to the dock.

Elk go for a swim in the manmade lake filled with water from the cave

I head back up the steps, take one last look at the picturesque cave entrance, and get back on the road. Tomorrow, I’ll stop at Walnut Acres, forty miles downstream. For today, it’s enough to see the source of Penns Creek and take a boat tour through a cave that still looks just like it did when the Keene family visited many years ago.