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Among the many weird stories about this hole, the earliest comes from Indian legends regarding a princess that the devil wanted to marry, and to make a long legend short, she ended up being swallowed by the hole. Another tale, supposedly from the 1880s, is about a black pioneer family who were on their way to town with a wagon-load of cotton when they saw the hole open up and gobble down an acre of tall pines. As a preacher once repeated their story, “The ground began rumbling like Satan himself was coming out of the earth, then a big, frightening hole opened-up swallowing trees, rocks, and at least one liquored-up sinner.” The Devil’s Millhopper was well known in early preaching for eating up a sinner or two, usually drunk ones. A traveling evangelist, in a fire-and-brimstone sermon aimed at persistent sinners, once preached, “It’s the gateway to hell; the devil’s own door!” |
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There is a wooden stairway of 232 steps leading from the rim down to a viewers platform in Millhopper’s bottom. I know because I counted the steps and can tell you going down is easy, but it’s a pretty good exercise going back up. There is a remarkable difference in temperature between the surface and Millhopper’s basin, where even on hot days it remains pleasantly cool. There are twelve springs in the bottom and a diversity of plant species resembling the flora found in the Appalachian Mountains. The real story behind this big cavity, according to the state geologist, is that it’s an ancient sinkhole, probably formed in two stages, the first about 10,000 years ago and the second stage about 1000 years ago. |