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Loyd and Edith Richardson treat Crystal Cave as a 'retirement job' to stay active. Loyd, 89, still handles maintenance of the show cave, which is the second oldest in Missouri.
Loyd and Edith Richardson treat Crystal Cave as a 'retirement job' to stay active. Loyd, 89, still handles maintenance of the show cave, which is the second oldest in Missouri.

Business Spotlight: Crystal Cave

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Crystal Cave

Owners: Loyd and Edith Richardson

Founded: 1893

Address: 7225 N. Crystal Cave Lane, Springfield, MO 65803

Phone: (417) 833-9599

Web site: www.crystalcavemissouri.com

Services/Products: Cave tours 9 a.m.–1 p.m., and souvenirs

Employees: None

Loyd and Edith Richardson are in a historic profession.

They run a show cave, the second oldest in Missouri. Opened in 1893, the Richardsons’ Crystal Cave is second only to Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, which opened in 1886.

Show caves have been around a lot longer. The earliest show caves have recorded tours and admission prices as early as the 16th and 17th centuries, according to Jochen Duckeck, a show-cave expert based in Germany.

“The highest density of show caves are in France, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia,” says Duckeck, who runs www.showcaves.com, including a show-cave blog. “It does not tend to be a highly profitable business. As caves are not a good investment, it often works best if families manage them.”

But it’s not about high profits for the Richardsons. Stable retirement income carries the couple, and they view the show-cave operation as a post-retirement career.

“That’s what we call it – our retirement job,” Edith Richardson says. “You have to do something to keep you busy.”

Crystal Cave is more of a trust than a business.

“It can be a moneymaking thing if you want to run it that way, but we don’t,” Loyd Richardson says, declining to share annual revenues. “It’s a ma and pa operation. We don’t have signs up and down the road like some of them. We stay about as busy as we want to be.”

The Mann who started it

The story of Crystal Cave originates with Alfred Mann, who emigrated from the resort town of Brighton, England, and opened the show cave just north of Springfield.

The Richardsons say Mann was aware of the cave’s commercial potential when he purchased it from William Jenkins.

“We didn’t know Mr. Mann at all,” Loyd Richardson says. “He died in 1925. When he found it, there were Osage Indians living in the cave. There’s one buried in the cave. When we show the cave, we point out his grave every day.”

The cave passed down to Mann’s daughters before the Richardsons became the owners. After the Mann sisters passed, the cave was willed to Edith Richardson’s sister and then purchased by the Richardsons in 1982.

Edith Richardson has early memories of the cave, having lived nearby, but she never toured it.

“We knew (the cave) was here, but we never went through it,” she says. “We probably didn’t have the 10 cents that it cost. That was a lot of money in those days.”

Owners set stage

In that era, family ownership was typical of show caves in America, according to Dwight Weaver, author of several books on caves including “Missouri Caves in History” and “Legend from Missouri University’s Missouri Heritage” series.

“Cave ownership and operation is much more diversified today than it was in the 1950s and 1960s, which was the golden era of the Missouri show-cave industry,” Weaver says. “Back then, all of the show caves in Missouri were privately owned, family-run operations.”

Mobility and electrification really turned the show-cave business on its ear, and location was very important. Show caves were among the first roadside attractions.

Not all caves are family owned, however, and the differences produce a wide range of results.

“There is a second important cave owner: the government, which means all sorts of park authorities,” adds Duckeck, the cave researcher. “The most important caves, and those with the most visitors, are in national parks. So by number, I would guess most caves are family-owned, but concerning visitors, most cave visits happen in national/state park caves like Mammoth or Carlsbad.”

In Missouri, which has been labeled “the cave state,” that trend is reversed.

“Mark Twain Cave, Marvel Cave, Fantastic Caverns, Meramec Caverns and Bridal Cave are privately owned cave operations, but they function at fairly high corporate levels (in staffing, patrons and income) which puts them in a category well above that of small, family-run show caves,” author Weaver notes. “Small, family-owned, family-run operations seldom show more than 10,000 to 15,000 visitors per year.”

By comparison, the Missouri caves Weaver mentioned attract 35,000 to 350,000 people per year.

Crystal clear future

At Crystal Cave, the number of tours varies greatly.

“We might have a dozen or we might have 50 in a day,” Richardson says of the tours, which cost $9 for adults and $5 for children; they recommend visitors call ahead. “You never know. The only way we know is when we schedule buses of school kids.”

Plans are set for the future of Crystal Cave. The Richardsons have set up a trust to turn the cave over to another retired couple Loyd Richardson describes as “kids in their 60s.”

“If we fell over today, it would be taken care of,” he says. “It wouldn’t go into probate. They could step right in.”

The Richardsons both still guide the tours themselves. Loyd Richardson will be 90 on his next birthday, and he still works in the cave. He opens up new rooms, runs lights and keeps the cave in good shape so it can pass the annual state inspection.

“It has to pass,” he says. “They look for safety, mainly.”

Edith Richardson says she doesn’t worry too much about her husband down in the cave alone.

“He usually takes a dog with him.”[[In-content Ad]]

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