A cave in southwest Springfield that dates back to the Ice Age has been designated a Greene County Historic Site.
Riverbluff cave at the Missouri Institute of Natural Science is the first cave to get the designation from the Greene County Historic Sites Board.
"It's significant because it's 1.3 million-years-old," said board member Dave Coonrod. "And it's the oldest known fossil cave in North America now."
The virgin cave was found on September 11, 2001 just after the World Trade Center was attacked. A contractor working for Greene County discovered it while doing road work on Farm Rd. 141.
Coonrod was the presiding commissioner then and was one of the first humans to go in. He’s been fascinated with it since and led the effort to get the cave designated as a Greene County Historic site.
"It's important to see it recognized and know that it will be protected and, quite frankly, honored by the community," he said.
Brett Houser, a member of the board for the Missouri Institute of Natural Science, hopes the designation will make more people aware of the museum’s existence.
"People who are interested in history who go through the Greene County Historical Society will find this place," he said, "and we're all about getting people in the doors, and as long as we've been open, I still run into people that say, 'well, I didn't know we had such a thing.'"
You can view artifacts from the cave at the Missouri Institute of Natural Science among other things.
Riverbluff Cave has claw marks and track ways made by the now-extinct peccary pig as well as formations and fossils left behind by animals that lived during the Ice Age.
Coonrod said the designation recognizes the cave not only as an historic site but also as a prime, active resource for study.
