Devil’s Sinkhole “Everything is bigger in Texas”, a familiar phrase that all Texans are accustomed to say to describe our beautiful state. There are many caves all over the state of Texas but Devil’s Sinkhole located Northeast of Rock Springs in Edward County catches the attention of many people. Not only for its history but for the massive sinkhole rumored to be a bat room. The size and depth of this sinkhole does not give justice to that phrase we are proud to say to anyone new to Texas. The history of Devil’s Sinkhole dates to the late 1800’s, during the time of Indians. In 1876, it was named by the wives of Ammon Billings and other men after they discovered its entrance during an encounter with Native Americans. Billings described it…show more content… Because acid water ate way at the limestone of Eduard’s Plateau. Over a period, it created a hole in the rock and as the water table dropped, the water that held up the ceiling of the cavern drained. This left the roof of the cave in, creating an opening of Devil’s Sinkhole. It is approximated that the sinkhole is a vertical cavern cutting into Edwards Limestone with an opening measuring approximately 40 x 60 foot and a vertical drop to the main cavern of about 140 feet. The main cavern is circular and reaches a total depth of 350-400 feet. Part of a vast karst system of underground caves in the porous Edwards Plateau, the sinkhole was created when an underground solution cavity…show more content… Chert is a hard, dark, opaque rock composed of silica with an amorphous or microscopically fine-grained texture. It occurs as nodules or, less often, in massive beds. There photographs that show the outcrops of the chert that was found inside Devil’s sinkhole, nodules measuring up to 16 inches roughly 40 centimeters in diameter. Even though not many geologist or archeologist explored the cave some found that the presence of burned rock middens, showed evidence of the baking of such plants as sotol, indicates that these plants were among the area resources utilized by prehistoric inhabitants. The chipped stone artifacts recovered from the sites in the Devil's Sinkhole State Natural Area provide evidence of another resource that attracted prehistoric inhabitants to this area. All the chipped stone tools, flakes and debris from these sites were produced from the same lithic material. This fine-grained, good quality knapping material is abundant across the State Natural Area and beyond, and was extensively quarried by prehistoric inhabitants. Subsistence resources and lithic material, the sinkhole itself must have drawn prehistoric groups to the area. Sinkholes played integral roles in the sacred as well as the physical landscape of Native Americans. Native Americans often considered sinkholes, as well as caves, crevices, springs and
