Joe Light’s wooden “Cherokee Cave” sign hangs in his basement, next to his caving equipment.

It’s a sign of St. Louis’ past — from the prehistoric era all the way to the kitschy 1950s. St. Louis city has about 30 caves beneath it. Cherokee Cave, Light says, may have the most folklore and history behind it.

“Everyone knows someone who knows someone who has a hole in their basement that leads to Cherokee Cave,” said Light, of St. Louis. “There’s no truth to any of those stories.”

Light, 44, works in information technology and is the vice president of the Meramec Valley Grotto, a caving group, and a data gatherer for the Missouri Speleological Survey. He’s an expert on the caves in the city and St. Louis County and grew up in Oakville, where he guesses there are about two dozen caves. “I grew up next to a sinkhole,” he said. “Pretty much had no choice, I guess.”

Cherokee Cave opened as a tourist cave in 1950, with a museum entrance near South Broadway and Cherokee Street. It’s technically a combination of Minnehaha Cave and Lemp Cave, which was used as brewery storage before the advent of commercial refrigeration in the 1860s. “Falstaff, Lemp and Anheuser-Busch are here because somebody found a hole in the ground,” said Light.