The Visitors Center

The following article is from the August 20, 2010, issue of “The Rocksprings Record and Texas Mohair Weekly”, our local paper.

Movie costume donated to Rocksprings Visitors Center

- The Rocksprings Visitors Center’s new theater is now displaying a piece of movie history. Thanks to Mrs. Donna Foster Graham the Devil’s Sinkhole Society, which runs the visitors center, now owns her costume from the 1950 movie The Devil’s Sink Hole.
The beautifully designed cowgirl outfit is now centered on the wall in the Visitors Center theater, set in place artistically by Sinkhole Society volunteer Melinda Wood.
Mrs. Graham is the daughter of the movie’s producer, Fred W. Foster. She donated the movie artifact when she visited Rocksprings recently with her brother Steve Foster and numerous other family members.
Mrs. Graham, who was a supporting star in the movie, recounted her continuing amazement about the giant cavern located eight miles outside Rocksprings.
Her brother Steve was too young to be in the movie, but the DVD of the movie includes an interview of Mr. Foster along with the 57 minute film.
The DVD was produced by the National Speleological Society and Fred W. Foster and is available for purchase or viewing at the Rocksprings Visitors Center. The DVDs are also on sale at the gift shop at the Sonora Cavern. The Rocksprings Visitors Center is home to the Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area tours: day tours, birding and nature walk tours, and the famous bat tour. The Visitors Center is located on the town square in Rocksprings.
Reservations for tours can be made in person, by calling 830-683-2287, or e-mailing tours@devilssinkhole.org.
The Devil’s Sinkhole is a National Natural Landmark.

Fossils on Exhibit and for Sale

Local collectors have brought in some fossils of the marine life that inhabited our area during the early Cretaceous period. At that time we were at the bottom of a shallow sea, thus our abundance of limestone. We also have some minerals, etc. from other regions that are especially interesting for beginning rock-hounders.

In addition to the museum area we have a gift shop and a theater.

The Rocksprings Visitors Center has many functions: it is a museum, a store, a theater, an office, and the gathering point for Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area tours.

In addition to many Devil’s Sinkhole items and a wide selection of books, the store has items for sale produced by local artisans.

Sotol cactus walking sticks, made and donated by Dennis Ray Piper, may be the most popular large item for sale at the store. Piper, a stalwart Devil’s Sinkhole Society volunteer, has created many dozens of them. They are especially popular with the tourists who come for the new birding/nature walk tours.

Extremely well-crafted boxes and birdhouses made and donated by Bobby Nix are often available for sale (when they aren’t sold out!) Mr. Nix also donates his woodcrafts as highly coveted door prizes at the Devil’s Sinkhole Society monthly members meetings. Nix has been a very important volunteer for the Society ever since it began.

Mr. Frank O. Cloudt created and donated some “cowboy wallets.” They are much thinner and lighter than ordinary wallets and come with a valuable surprise inside, a whole dollar bill. It is considered bad luck, apparently, to have an empty “cowboy” wallet.

Ms. Connie Lees created and donated some bat jewelry, mostly earrings but also a few other items. Lees is an important “worker bat” with the Society and she’s also a former board member.

Some wooden bat Christmas ornaments and bat nightlights made with shaved rock are in stock. They are the handiwork of Ms. Mildred Barnhart.

The Visitors Center also has a few of Dolores’ “Unique Designs” mohair jackets. The late jeweler Randy Clark provided the Visitors Center with some gold and silver bat pins that can be found nowhere else. We also have a locally formulated brisket “rub” (to give you a Rocksprings memory flavor after you return home).

As DSS president Andrew Barnebey says, “The Devil’s Sinkhole Society is very grateful to our local craftsmen for allowing us to display these clever creations.”

The Rocksprings Visitors Center is open 10 to 4 throughout bat season (May 1-mid-October.) Winter season hours are a bit shorter, but the Rocksprings Visitors Center is open 363 days a year. The store is staffed entirely by volunteers.

For further information or to book a bat, birding, or nature tour, call 830-683-2287. Come explore the shop as well as the area around the Sinkhole.

For now we use the theater to show informative, fascinating DVDs about the Sinkhole. One of the movies is the 1950 movie “The Devil’s Sink Hole”. It is in black and white and is very clever in the use of the Sinkhole as the main part of the plot.

In the future we will be showing a 3-D tour of the Sinkhole. For the complete story press here to view the LiDAR section of this website.