Ohio Caverns facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ohio Caverns |
|
|---|---|
.jpg)
Postcard view of entrance
|
|
| Nearest city | West Liberty, Ohio |
The Ohio Caverns is a cool show cave you can visit! It's located about 30 miles from Dayton, Ohio, near West Liberty, Ohio, in the United States. It's the biggest cave system in Ohio and is famous for its amazing crystal formations. About 90% of its stalactites (hang from the ceiling) and stalagmites (grow from the floor) are still growing!
Long, long ago, this cave system was an underground river filled with melted glacier water. Over time, the river moved to deeper parts of the ground, and now you can't see it.
Contents
How the Ohio Caverns Formed
The Ohio Caverns are found in a special area called the Bellefontaine Outlier. This spot has very old rocks from the Devonian period, surrounded by even older rocks from the Silurian period. Imagine a big block of land that dropped down, forming a valley called a graben or rift valley.
Over many years, huge glaciers moved across the land. They wore away the softer rock around this dropped-down area. This left the graben area as the highest point in Ohio, about 1549 feet above sea level. Rainwater then seeped into cracks in the limestone, slowly carving out the caverns we see today.
The Exciting History of the Caverns
Discovery of the Ohio Caverns
The Ohio Caverns were discovered on August 17, 1897, by a farmhand named Robert Noffsinger. He worked on Abraham William Reams' farm. For about 10 years, a sinkhole had been growing on the farm. It was 50 feet wide and 10 feet deep! One night, a heavy rain filled the sinkhole with water, but by morning, all the water was gone.
Mr. Reams asked Robert Noffsinger and Jordan Reams to dig in the sinkhole. Robert dug a few feet until he hit hard limestone. He found a crack and broke through it. Immediately, he felt the cool 54°F air from the caverns. He was super curious! Robert lowered himself into the cave, becoming the first person to enter the Ohio Caverns. After crawling 8 feet, he asked for an oil lantern. With the lantern, he explored an amazing 802 feet on his first trip!
Early Mt. Tabor Cave Tours
Robert told the farmer, William Reams, about his discovery. Reams explored the cave himself and decided to open it to the public. It opened to friends and family on August 27, 1897, and then to everyone on September 9, 1897. The tours were called "Mt. Tabor Cave Tours."
Hundreds of people visited during the 25 years these tours ran. But these early visitors explored only about 0.25 miles of the cave. Sadly, they damaged it by taking crystal formations and writing their names on the walls.
Digging Out the Caverns
In 1922, Reams sold the land to two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, Allen and Ira Smith. They hired workers to dig out the rest of the caverns. The team spent three and a half years removing mud left by the ancient underground river.
As they dug, the Smith team hung 60-watt light bulbs to help them see. These lights got power from a Fordson tractor on the surface, because the area didn't have electricity until the mid-1930s.
They dug four new exits. One even had a horse-drawn wooden freight elevator! The group mapped about 3.5 miles of tunnels and chose the best path for a one-way tour. They closed one exit with a rock wall and planted a tree over it. The elevator shaft was also filled in, and a concrete wall now seals it.
The Smiths kept the same entrance style Reams had used, building iron doors at the ends of the new tour route. A small building was built over one entrance, with 38 steps leading 35 feet down into the cave. At the other end, 60 concrete stairs were built. Today, the old iron doors and current exit door have small holes. These allow bats, like little brown bats and eastern pipistrelles, to enter and find shelter, especially in winter.
The Ohio Caverns Today
The excavation team laid gravel on the paths they had dug. The Smith family opened their new business as the Ohio Caverns in 1925. Their guided tour was 1 mile long and did not include the 0.25-mile section that Reams' early visitors had damaged.
.jpg)
Over the rest of the 1900s, many changes happened at the caverns and park. Above ground, they built picnic shelters, a dining hall (now a storage building), a playground, restrooms, and a steel barn. Later, a small exit building was added for safety, and the entrance building was updated to include a gift shop and offices.
Inside the cave, concrete floors were added in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a professional cave lighting team hid new lights in concrete sconces, making the cave look even better than with the old bare bulbs.
The Historical Tour
To celebrate 100 years since Robert Noffsinger discovered the cave, the Ohio Caverns opened its Historical Tour in 1997. This tour takes you through Reams' original section of the cave. It has bare light bulbs and gravel floors, just like the very first tours! The Historical Section was added as a 45-minute extension to the regular tour and has been an option ever since.
Cool Attractions Inside the Caverns
The Crystal Sea and Natural Bridge
.jpg)
The Crystal Sea is a shallow pool of water, only about 1 inch deep. It's called the Crystal Sea because the ceiling of the cave reflects perfectly in the water, making it look like a sparkling sea! This area is near where the old freight elevator was.
Close by is the Natural Bridge, a mud shelf above the path. It holds 10 to 20 crystal columns and was the original floor of the tunnel. The Smiths' team dug under these columns, leaving them untouched to form this natural bridge.
Fantasy Land and The Old Town Pump
Fantasy Land has more "soda straws" (thin, hollow stalactites) and "helictites" (twisted, gravity-defying formations) than any other part of the Ohio Caverns. It's called Fantasy Land because of the many formations that look like different things, like The Old Town Pump, which looks just like an old-fashioned hand pump.
The Crystal King and Deepest Point
The Crystal King is the biggest stalactite hanging freely in all of Ohio! It's about 4 feet 10.5 inches long and is estimated to weigh over 400 pounds. Scientists think it's more than 200,000 years old!
The Crystal King and Fantasy Land are also the farthest points from the surface in the cave. The deepest point you can reach is 103 feet underground!
The Big Room and The Good Luck Crystal
The Big Room is the largest room in the cave, covering more than 0.5 acres. It has hundreds of formations, including the tallest column in the cave, which is almost 5 feet tall. There's even a new column that formed in the 1980s! Another column is expected to form within the next century.
In the early days of the tours, people were allowed to touch the formations. Many formations in the Big Room, especially those near the paths, became stained from the dirt and oil on human hands. One 3-foot tall stalagmite was called The Good Luck Crystal. Almost every visitor touched it for "good luck" for about a year until the staff noticed a brown stain appearing. In 1926, a "no-touching" rule was made, and The Good Luck Crystal was renamed The Dirty Crystal!
The Palace of the Gods and Dual Formations
.jpg)
The Palace of the Gods is the most photographed room in the caverns. It has a huge variety of colors and formations! You can see examples of almost every type of formation here:
- Formations colored by iron oxide (reddish-brown)
- Formations colored by manganese dioxide (darker)
- Calcite formations like stalactites, stalagmites, columns, flowstone, soda straws, and helictites
This room also has something super rare called Dual Formations. The Ohio Caverns is the only known cave in North America, and one of very few in the world, to have them! A Dual Formation is when one formation grows on top of another. In the Palace of the Gods, you can see calcite stalactites growing right on the ends of iron oxide formations.
The Jewel Room
The Jewel Room helped give Ohio Caverns its nickname, "America's Most Colorful Caverns." The room's color is split down the middle: one side is mostly reddish-brown from iron oxide, while the other side is darker from manganese dioxide.
The Jewel Room was the last area finished by the Smith team, and it's the end of the tour. There's a huge pile of rocks in this room from when they built the exit stairway. Since 1928, a recording of the song Beautiful Ohio has been played at the end of each guided tour.
The Historic Section
Since 1997, you can take a tour of the Historic Section, also known as The Old Cave or Reams' Cave. This is an extension of the regular tour. Unlike the main cave with its concrete floors and hidden lights, the Historic Section has bare light bulbs and gravel floors, just like the very first tours!
In this section, you'll find:
- The Palace of Natural Art: a colorful, natural round room.
- The Giant's Coffin: a rock nicknamed by Reams' early visitors.
- The Pulpit: which looks a bit like a church setting, with an upright rock that resembles a pulpit.
The Historic Section also has small crawling areas like Lovers' Lane and The Backscratcher. Reams and his visitors explored these, but the Smiths' team didn't dig them out. This section has very few speleothems (cave formations) because most were taken as souvenirs between 1897 and 1922. So, its main attractions are its cool colors and the old graffiti left by early visitors!
