Caves are fissures where evil seeps. And some of these must’ve been named by people who were scared shitless.

In Texas, don’t stumble into Toad Frog Falling Floor Fissure, Left In a Lurch Cave, Coon Crap Cave, Putrid Pit, and Big Mutha Caverns.

Georgians tiptoe around Dead Dog Pit, Miss Ing Pit, Not Dan’s Birthday Pit, and Missing Evan Well.

In Alabama, try to avoid Glenn’s Hazardous Double Shot, Hurt Tree Pit and Crypt of Terror Pit.

The Tennessee landscape hides Milk Horror Hole and Dead Dog Drop.

In Missouri beware of Devil’s Well, Snake Pit Cave, Alma’s Arm Pit, Sweet Little Lady Cave, Knotta Cave, Cracker Neck Cave, Goat Guano Cave, Devils Armchair, Angry Cow Cave, Bad Air Pit, Dontwanngo Cave, Notalotta Cave, Shagnasty Cave and ten holes in the ground named after bushwhackers.

The art director for the judgment day, Hieronymus Bosch, painted vivid vignettes depicting the pits of Hell. Dante warns, “All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”

Plato describes the cave as a prison, and Romans made it so, banishing early Christians to dwell in the catacombs, the scariest place this side of the Book of Revelations.

Graphic accounts of the Monongah Mine Disaster defined the horrors of a cave in.

Poe and Twain used caves to trap heroes and villains. Vincent Price used caves to give bats a bad name. Several caves became Ku Klux Klan hangouts. Ozarks settlers named caves after the Devil.

No wonder some folks fear caves, using terms like spelunkophobia, claustrophobia and acrophobia. Yet it’s puzzling that the million-word English dictionary doesn’t appear to contain a word for the fear of payday lenders.

–from Souls Along The Road