Kingston Saltpeter Cave is the largest cave in

Bartow County, Georgia Bartow County is in the Northwest region of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 108,901, up from 100,157 in 2010. The county seat is Cartersville. Traditionally considered part of northwest Georgia, Bartow ...

, United States. It was formerly used as a source of

saltpeter Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with a sharp, salty, bitter taste and the chemical formula . It is a potassium salt of nitric acid. This salt consists of potassium cations and nitrate anions , and is therefore an alkali metal nitrate ...

, the critical oxidizing component of

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...

, by the

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an List of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United State ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

(1861–1865). The cave is now a preserved area composed of 40 acres of largely

hardwood forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These for ...

, underlain by a variety of

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, rather than being intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is any different from the native plant, eve ...

s and

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

es. In late 1983 the property was acquired by the Felburn Foundation in order to preserve, maintain, and protect it for future generations.NSS CAVE PRESERVES AND ASSOCIATED POLICIES – Cave Conservancy Home – Kingston Saltpeter Cave Preserve
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References

General references

*Sneed, Joel M., (2007), Bartow County Caves: History Underground in North Georgia, 161 pp. *Sneed, Joel M. and Larry O. Blair, eds., (2005), The Late Pleistocene Record of Kingston Saltpeter Cave, Bartow County, Georgia

External links

Caves of Georgia (U.S. state) Protected areas of Bartow County, Georgia Nature reserves in Georgia (U.S. state) Landforms of Bartow County, Georgia {{US-cave-stub