In the mid 1920s, Ida Mathis's son Allen bought out the other mining partners' interest in the caverns and secured all underground rights to the property and surrounding areas. Throughout its first half-century, the cave was a popular place of exploration for young romantics and teenage spelunkers. In the early 1960s, Mathis, along with Mr. Fred Layton, began to develop the caverns into a show cave, and high-powered electric lights were installed to show off the caverns' colorful onyx. The attraction was initially opened to the public under the name KyMulga Onyx Cave, after a group of Chickasaw Indians who had established the Indian village Kymulga a few miles away on Talladega Creek around 1960.