Ohio Caverns

At a glance

Overview

Ohio Caverns is the largest cave system in Ohio, a privately owned show cave in Salem Township, Champaign County, about four miles east of West Liberty on State Route 245. Its passages were dissolved out of Middle Devonian Columbus Limestone, roughly 394 to 383 million years old, when meltwater from retreating Ice Age glaciers worked down through weaknesses in the rock, and they are lined with white calcite, red iron-oxide and blue-black manganese deposits. Farmhand Robert Noffsinger found it in August 1897 by digging into a sinkhole on Abraham William Reams' farm, and it opened for tours as Mt. Tabor Cave that September. After a 1921 court ruling placed most of the cave under neighbor Albert H. Smith's land, Smith dug a new entrance, bought out the Reams share in 1923, renamed it Ohio Caverns, and with his brother Ira cleared mud from the passages and installed electric light. Its best-known formation, the Crystal King stalactite, has been growing for more than 250,000 years.

The name

First advertised in 1897 as Mt. Tabor Cave Tours. According to the Ohio Geological Survey, Albert H. Smith renamed it Ohio Caverns after buying the Reams family's share in 1923. (source)

How the land formed

Ohio Caverns lies in the southwestern part of the Bellefontaine Outlier, a topographically high area of younger rock surrounded by older rock. The passages are cut in the Middle Devonian Columbus Limestone (394-383 million years old), about 65 feet thick here and laid down when Ohio lay south of the equator under a warm, shallow sea; the Upper Devonian Ohio Shale still caps most of the system, and glacial till covers the surface. The cave is karst: during the most recent Ice Age, meltwater from the receding glaciers seeped down along existing weaknesses in the limestone and dissolved it. It is a branchwork cavern with at least two levels. Three kinds of deposits line it: bluish-black manganese dioxide, red to yellowish-brown iron oxide, and white calcite flowstone and speleothems, including soda straws and gravity-defying helictites. Its 'dual formations' formed when iron oxide was deposited first and calcite grew over it later, so the two never mixed. Calcite formations grow about one cubic inch every 500 to 1,000 years. (source)

Native American history

Nothing site-specific is recorded: the cave was sealed from the surface until a sinkhole opened in 1897, and the owners describe it as a cavern with no natural opening that nothing ever lived in. The surrounding Mad River valley was Shawnee country in the 1780s; in October 1786 a Kentucky militia force under Benjamin Logan burned thirteen Shawnee towns along the Little Miami and Mad rivers, mostly occupied by women and children, and killed the aged chief Moluntha. Mac-o-chee Creek, which flows south to the Mad River, takes its name from an old Indian village near its source in Logan County. Middleton's 1917 county history places the Greenville Treaty Line of 1795, the boundary between Native lands and those relinquished to the United States, to the north in Logan County, so the cave's land lay on the ceded side. No published source assigns a particular nation to the cave site.

• Shawnee towns on the Mad River burned in Logan's raid: village, Mad River and Little Miami valleys (not at the cave), 1786
• Old Indian village of Mac-o-chee: village, Near the source of Mac-o-chee Creek, Logan County, 18th century (not dated in source)
• Greenville Treaty Line: treaty, North of Champaign County, through Logan County, 1795

Stories

A sinkhole in a low field

In August 1897 Robert Noffsinger, a farmhand on Abraham William Reams' farm, noticed a sinkhole starting to form in a low spot in a field. With Jordan Reams he dug into it and found a crack in the limestone bedrock. He broke through the rock and found himself at the entrance to a cave. Within weeks, on September 9, 1897, the Reams family opened it to the public as Mt. Tabor Cave Tours, showing more than a quarter mile of passage. (source)

Souvenirs and signatures

The first tourists did lasting damage. Visitors in the early years were encouraged to break off crystal formations to take home and to write their names and messages on the walls. The Ohio Geological Survey says early tourism destroyed much of the natural beauty of that first section of the cave. The formations do not come back on any human timescale: calcite here grows about a cubic inch every 500 to 1,000 years. (source)

The cave under the neighbor's farm

The entrance was on the Reams farm, but in May 1921 a local judge ruled that most of the cavern ran under the property of the neighbor, Albert H. Smith. That August, after several failed tries, Smith dug 20 feet down on his own land and reached another passage, the entrance used ever since. In 1923 he bought the Reams share and named the whole system Ohio Caverns. With his brother Ira he hired a crew to dig out the mud the old underground river had left, strung electric lights and ran paid guided tours. In 1925 they found a more striking section and closed Noffsinger's original entrance. (source)

The Crystal King

The cave's best-known formation is the Crystal King, a pure white stalactite that the owners' 2009 website called one of the largest and most perfectly formed stalactites in any cave. That site gave it as nearly five feet long, weighing an estimated 400 pounds and more than 200,000 years old, and said it drips once every seven to eight minutes. It also noted that ninety-five percent of the cavern's formations are still active and growing, at a rate of 500 to 1,000 years for each cubic inch of calcite. (source)

Timeline

• 394-383 million years ago: The Columbus Limestone that holds the cave is laid down on the floor of a warm, shallow Middle Devonian sea. (source)
• 383-359 million years ago: Rising Late Devonian seas deposit the Ohio Shale that still caps most of the cave system. (source)
• Last Ice Age: Meltwater from receding glaciers seeps down through weaknesses in the limestone and dissolves the passages. (source)
• more than 250,000 years ago: The Crystal King stalactite begins growing. (source)
• 1786: Benjamin Logan's Kentucky militia burns thirteen Shawnee towns along the Little Miami and Mad rivers. (source)
• 1795: The Treaty of Greenville is signed; its boundary line runs north of Champaign County through Logan County. (source)
• 1897: In August farmhand Robert Noffsinger, with Jordan Reams, digs into a new sinkhole on Abraham William Reams' farm and breaks through into the cave. (source)
• 1897: The cave opens to the public on September 9 as Mt. Tabor Cave Tours, showing more than a quarter mile of passage to hundreds of visitors. (source)
• 1921: In May a local judge rules that most of the cavern lies under the land of Reams' neighbor, Albert H. Smith, although the entrance is on the Reams farm. (source)
• 1921: In August, after several failed attempts, Smith digs 20 feet down and reaches a second passage, which becomes the entrance still used today. (source)
• 1923: Smith buys the Reams share and names the cave Ohio Caverns; with his brother Ira he hires crews to dig out river mud, adds electric light and offers paid guided tours. (source)
• 1925: A more striking section of the cave is found and Noffsinger's original entrance is closed, ending tours of the 1897-1925 route. (source)
• 1997: The historic section toured from 1897 to 1925 is reopened for the centennial of the discovery, entered at the original discovery site. (source)
• 2012: A new sinkhole entrance is opened for the tour through the section discovered in the 1920s. (source)
• 2023: The Ohio Geological Survey publishes GeoFacts No. 37 on the cave, putting the surveyed length at more than 15,700 feet. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: index
• en.wikipedia.org: index
• dam.assets.ohio.gov: GF37 Hunt 2023
• jsj-geology.net: Ohio Caverns
• ohiocaverns.com: overview
• ohiocaverns.com: school projects
• ohiocaverns.com: historic tour
• ohiocaverns.com: natural wonder tour
• ohiocaverns.com: story
• archive.org: bub gb TdQyAQAAMAAJ djvu.txt
• commons.wikimedia.org: Category:Ohio Caverns