Large deposits of limestone and running water made Big Spring Park an ideal location for caves, including a cave in the bluff on the park’s south side that remained in the memories of Neosho’s elders. This cave was used by both sides during the Civil War, and Union soldiers blasted its entrance while Confederate soldiers and supplies may have been inside. When the cave was reopened in 1894, two boys became lost for more than a day, and rescuers also lost their way until townspeople brought all the string they could find to the park and the boys were found at the back of the cave. After that, the cave was closed in a permanent manner. In 1946 J.W. Abbott left his estate to the City of Neosho for the Abbott Brothers Big Spring Park Fund and suggested clearing out and opening up the cave, and in 1995 the City of Neosho began searching for it.