BENTONVILLE — Nestled in the curves of Highway 72 between Bentonville and Centerton lies what was one of the area’s prime tourist attractions years ago. But you would never know it today; that is, not unless you were to go looking for it.

Rumored to have been used as a hideout for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, the Civil War Cave tunnels 340 feet underground and is home to three large caverns, fool’s gold, an underground stream and the now-endangered Ozark Blind Cavefish.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a billboard behind Taco Bell at the corner of Central Avenue and Walton Boulevard advertised its location as the place to visit because the Yankees never did find it when they were in the area to fight the Battle of Pea Ridge.

In the 1980s, Tom and Becky Mc- Coy, along with two other couples, owned the property where the underground cave sits.

“The Yankees never found it. That was the sign at the end of the property,” Becky McCoy said. “As couples, it was an investment. But the women, we just had a good time with it.

“We really got into the Civil War Cave, selling the knick-knacks in the little rock house on the front of the property. We sold curtains, Confederate memorabilia, little hats, flags and other merchandise. We had the best time.”

“The story that I was told is that because it is so well hidden, the Confederate army hid in there for two days with all of their men, all of their gear and their horses and the Union army marched right over them,” said Jill Marley, property manager of the Cedar Ridge Event Center that now shares the land holding the Civil War Cave.

One of the workers renovating the event center on the property once told Marley he saw the ghosts of Confederate soldiers as he worked there one night, she said.

“Supposedly Jesse James hid out there with some outlaws from Missouri, but who really knows,” McCoy said of the cave. “The thing I remember the most was the fun part with the girls and the silliness that ensued. It was a lot of fun.”

Those who wanted to take a tour of the cave that was advertised as a “Rebel hideout, at last open to Yankees” simply parked outside of the little stone gift shop and walked a couple hundred yards to the cave. Once there, a concrete path and stairs led visitors down into the depths of the cave, alongside a roaring underground river that is said to pump an average of 60,000 gallons of water an hour over the cave’s rimstone dams, according to an old pamphlet about the cave.

“We kept it open because of all of the interest. There was not that much around here to see back then.” Scott James of Ft. Smith and a partner purchased the property in 2004. “It is still there. It used to be a community cave and they used to do tours, but that was many, many years ago,” James said.

“It is kind of a unique property,” James said, noting his hopes that the state will purchase the property for its historical value and to help save the Ozark Blind Cavefish that call the cave home. Today, the small stone gift shop, once a place for tourists to collect a keepsake to show friends and families about their visit to the Civil War Cave, is a bridal suite used by brides and their mothers to get ready for the big day.

The cave’s gated and locked entrance, nearly impossible to find, is hidden with overgrown ivy, grass and trees.

Sections of the concrete path that visitors stomped to travel 340 feet underground are missing or grown over, and the cave’s lighting system no longer works. Nothing, except perhaps the cave itself, has remained untouched by time.