HISTORY

The cave was completely ignored in this area, untill towards the end of the autumn of 1880 the young Sahuquet penetrated into the cave. Being a young shepherd, he was guarding the herd of one of the nearby farmers. One day, he saw a fox penetrating into a crack in the rocks and, being a hunter by instinct, as any shepherd caussenard who respects himself, he put into his mind the task of capturing the fox. 
After several hours of work, he realized that the crack was widening, passed soon himself through the increasing opening and in fact he has entered in the first room. Very frightened by the first stalagmites he saw, it is said that, because of "phantoms" and the resonance of his own voice in the immense obscure hole, he did not continue.

At that time arrived in the area the young 24 year old geographer, E.A MARTEL, who inspected the large room of the entry, in which he found the existence of five deep wells. In order to make methodical exploration of the cave, quite some material was necessary and a complete and detailed visit of the large room and other parts of the cave took only place in 1888, an outstanding year for speleology. 
Ever since many people came to see the marvellous cave. In 1891, the property of Dargilan was transferred to Mr Schitz and Consorts who decided to organised regular visits. The Company that they formed for this purpose, was called Picturesque France. It was replaced by the "Company of the Gorges of the Tarn", and later-on Limited company of Dargilan. In 1910, electric cables were installed, allowing a successive lighting of all the rooms. Currently, 

Dargilan is one of the caves best arranged than one can visit. Thanks to the work carried out in 1982 by Mr. Ephrem PASSET, with modern technology, the visitor can visit the cave on a length of 1 km.

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