![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gloryjune.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Ohio-caverns-cropped.jpg\" "\\"Ohio")
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Ohio Caverns is one of those timeless attractions.\u00a0 The entrance to the property is essentially the same since it was erected in the 1930s; the cave, of course, has survived decades of tourists and is as mysteriously beautiful as ever.\u00a0 On a lovely fall day we were the only people there for a tour at that time, so we had the caverns to ourselves.\u00a0 Ah.\u00a0 It had been too many years since I\u2019d been deep into a cave.\u00a0 The current entrance and passage through the caverns was created in 1925 and takes one through a fairyland (indeed, old brochures marketed the site as \u201cNature\u2019s Fairyland.\u201d), enhanced with direct and indirect lighting.\u00a0 Owing to a variety of mineral deposits, the Ohio Caverns are especially colorful.\u00a0 The guide pointed out a narrow passage off the main trail that had once been open to the public in the early twentieth century, shortly after the cave was discovered in 1897.\u00a0 Access to it was from the original opening, and with advance notice, one could arrange a tour.\u00a0 But this year (2012), the \u201chistoric tour\u201d has been opened up and is offered regularly.\u00a0 I can never check places off my list; there is always a reason to return!<\/p>\n
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I was so taken with caves in my youth that after a visit to the granddaddy of them all, Mammoth Cave, I saw myself as a cave guide or some such.\u00a0 I produced an exhibit on cave geology for the school science fair and wrote a paper on the history of Mammoth Cave for my English class.\u00a0 But although I did not pursue a career in speleology, when I was in college I went on wild caving expeditions (also called \u201cspelunking\u201d by people who don\u2019t actually do it), led by my geography professor, in whose earth science classes I excelled.\u00a0 What adventures we had!\u00a0 I continued for some years after to go caving in southern Indiana and even in the coral-based caves of Florida (painful for crawling!)\u00a0 But this does not make commercial caves any less appealing to me.<\/p>\n Caves have a long history as tourist destinations.\u00a0 Kentucky\u2019s Mammoth Cave, discovered in or before 1797 (although no doubt the natives of the region knew of it), within a few decades became one of the major scenic wonders of an American tour.\u00a0 Imagine the difficulty in traveling to such a forlorn location!\u00a0 But the famous Swedish soprano Jenny Lind (among other celebrities) came to visit in 1851, and supposedly gave an impromptu concert seated on a chair-like formation, known today as \u201cJenny Lind\u2019s Armchair.\u201d\u00a0 European visitors especially admired examples of America\u2019s wild grandeur.\u00a0 Imagine, too, the differences in cave touring then and now.\u00a0 Guides led visitors by lantern or torchlight through passages that may or may not have been cleared of at least some of the rubble common to caves.\u00a0 (Of course, this is rather similar to what cavers experience in wild caves, only we probably do a lot more crawling and climbing and clambering through mud, using heavy duty flashlights and carbide lamps, than the tourists did.)<\/p>\n With the coming of the automobile, particularly the affordable Model T, droves of ordinary Americans took to the roads of their vast country to see the sights. \u00a0 Noting the profits made by the owners of Mammoth Cave (not yet a National Park), the poverty-stricken denizens of cave-pocked Kentucky saw the possibility of tourist dollars and scrambled amidst their rolling hills to find caves that could be exploited.\u00a0 The Kentucky cave wars of the 1920s sparked lies and misdeeds (travelers were led to to other caves by false signs, for instance), violence, and ultimately, a death in 1925, that of Floyd Collins, every caver\u2019s bad example.\u00a0 He went off alone, telling no one where he was going (breaking two cardinal rules of caving), and became trapped underground in what later was named Sand Cave.\u00a0 He had been searching for a new cave or a new entrance to the Mammoth Cave system farther up the highway to snag tourists.\u00a0 Media circuses are nothing new\u2013only the media have changed\u2013so mobs of newspaper reporters and announcers for the newfangled radio came, as did the morbidly curious public, to cover what ultimately was the long, gruesome death of Collins from exposure and starvation.\u00a0 Would-be rescuers reached his body three days after he died.\u00a0 The remains were eventually buried on the Collins farm, but when his father sold the property a few years later, the new owner exhumed the body, placed it in a glass-topped coffin (no, I\u2019m not making this up), and put it on display in Crystal Cave, which had been discovered by Collins some years earlier on the property.\u00a0 Even more disgusting is that the body was stolen, later to be recovered sans one leg!\u00a0 Still, the cave owners continued to display the body, the coffin now securely chained, until 1961, when the National Park Service (NPS) bought the property and closed the cave (now open to cave explorers with permission from NPS, no regular tours).\u00a0 Collins was finally laid to rest in a real cemetery in 1989, when NPS buried him in the Flint Ridge Cemetery.\u00a0 One suspects he might have wished to remain in the cave that he discovered.\u00a0 Some tourist materials refer to Crystal Cave as \u201cFloyd Collins [sic] personal backyard cave.\u201d<\/p>\n The cave wars and especially the death of Floyd Collins strengthened the growing movement to make Mammoth Cave a national park, which happened in the 1940s.\u00a0 Subsequent cave explorations have shown that most of the caves in this area are linked in one vast underground system.\u00a0 A connection between Mammoth Cave and the Flint Ridge caves was discovered in 1972, detailed in the book The Longest Cave<\/em> by Roger W. Brucker<\/a> and Richard A. Watson<\/a>.<\/p>\n Too much drama!\u00a0 The Ohio Caverns, lacking such a grisly history, \u00a0are as beautiful as any I have ever seen, with more formations packed within its confines than many larger caves. \u00a0And the countryside surrounding it is so peaceful, with no hint of the beauties beneath it. \u00a0I am eager to return to experience the \u201chistoric tour.\u201d\u00a0 Besides, nearby West Liberty boasts other sites of interest, including the over-the-top Piatt Castles\u00a0 (http:\/\/www.piattcastles.org\/piattcastles\/Home.html<\/a>), which have been open for tours for one hundred years (!) and, of course, Marie\u2019s Candies\u00a0 (http:\/\/www.mariescandies.com\/<\/a>), a mere 56 years old, famous for its chocolates.\u00a0 I hear the road calling to me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On my way to somewhere else in Ohio, there was something I wanted to see again, an old tourist attraction in which my daddy had carried me around when I was a toddler, so my mom always told me. I … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n