Cave-In-Rock is a village in Hardin County, Illinois, United States. Its principal feature and tourist attraction is nearby Cave-In-Rock, on the banks of the Ohio River. In 1816, the earliest known permanent white settlers arrived and started building a town near the cave. The town was originally known as Rock and Cave, Illinois, with a post office under this name. On October 24, 1849, the town was officially renamed Cave-In-Rock. Cave-In-Rock was incorporated as a village in 1901. The population was 228 at the 2020 census.
Beginning in the 1790s, Cave-in-Rock became a refuge stronghold for frontier outlaws, on the run from the law which included river pirates and highwaymen Samuel Mason and James Ford, tavern owner/highwayman Isaiah L. Potts, serial killers/bandits the Harpe brothers, counterfeiters Philip Alston, Peter Alston, John Duff, Eson Bixby, and the Sturdivant Gang, and the post-American Civil War bandit, Logan Belt.
thumb|Cave-in-rock, view on the Ohio (circa 1832): aquatint by [[Karl Bodmer from the book Maximilian, Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, During the Years 1832–1834]]
thumb|[[Fluorite mineral specimen from Cave-in-Rock area]]
History
From the 1790s to the 1870s, the area around Cave-in-Rock was plagued by what historians as early as the 1830s referred to as the "Ancient Colony of Horse-Thieves, Counterfeiters and Robbers", and better known today due to Otto Rothert's book early in the 20th century as the "Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock".
In 1790, counterfeiters Philip Alston and John Duff (or John McElduff) used the cave as some type of rendezvous, though details are scarce. Although folklore printed in 19th century histories failed to establish a prior connection between the two men, both had lived in the area of Natchez, Mississippi, at the start of the Revolutionary War.
Duff was living upriver a few miles, either at Battery Rock or across the Ohio River at what would become Caseyville, Kentucky, when in 1797 Samuel Mason moved his base of operations from Diamond Island and Red Banks to the cave and made it the home of river pirates. Two of Mason's brothers had been business partners of Duff in Kaskaskia, Illinois, in the 1780s. Mason created a combination tavern, gambling den, brothel, and criminal refuge. His men lured in gullible river travelers and then robbed and killed them.
Cave-in-Rock is located in the driftless area of southern Illinois and features geographical differential erosions from the Upper Mississippian and Lower Pennsylvanian ages. Bluffs and ridges are generally sandstone, while valleys are from limestones and shales.
As of the 2020 census
The multi-day heavy metal festival Full Terror Assault (FTA Open Air) takes place once a year at the Hogrock Ranch & Campground.
L. A. Meyer's novel Mississippi Jack features the heroine leading an anachronistic raid against river pirates as an homage to the aforementioned Davy Crockett episode.
In 2009, artist Greg Stimac photographed Cave-In-Rock's cave for his series of outlaw hideouts. In 2013, his photograph "Ancient Colony of Horse-Thieves, Counterfeiters and Robbers" was included in The Seven Borders, an exhibition curated by Joey Yates at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.
See also
- List of cities and towns along the Ohio River