CINCINNATI — A beloved exhibit of kids and kids of all ages reopens this weekend at the Cincinnati Museum Center after being closed for the past two-and-a-half years.

“The Cave” — an expansive, two-story replica of a limestone cave system — officially reopens Friday, Sept. 2 inside its longtime Union Terminal home. 

The museum closed the decades-old exhibit in March 2020 for maintenance and it remained shuttered following the emergence of the pandemic.

“The beauty of ‘The Cave’ is that it truly connects you to the natural world around you in immersive, dynamic ways,” said Elizabeth Pierce, president and CEO of Cincinnati Museum Center. “It remains one of our guests’ favorite exhibits and has been the one asked about most over the past two years of COVID pivots and recovery. After some necessary prudence and needed repairs, we’re excited to welcome our community to go caving once again.”

“The Cave” first debuted at Cincinnati Museum of Natural History in 1967. It moved to Union Terminal in 1990 as the museum became part of Cincinnati Museum Center.

The immersive display offers guests a chance to wander through a cavernous 500-foot corridor full of narrow twists, darkened passageways and a collection of realistic-looking stalactites and stalagmites.  

Designers modeled after similar cave formations in the greater Cincinnati-area, including the famed Mammoth Cave in west-central Kentucky. One of the signature elements is a series of cascading waterfalls.

Over the years, the exhibit has become a favorite of the museum’s nearly 1.8 million guests every year. But a string of facility renovations, maintenance work and the emergence of COVID-19 have kept “The Cave” closed for much of the past six years.

It first closed from July 2016 to March 2019 as part of the Union Terminal restoration project. While parts of the Cincinnati Museum Center remained open, the restoration work made “The Cave” inaccessible.

After reopening for just about a year, “The Cave” and the rest of the museum had to shut down in-person operations in March 2020 because of the pandemic.

CMC kept “The Cave” closed until staff performed some needed maintenance and felt it was safe to reopen it, according to Cody Hefner, a museum spokesperson.

Sarah Nichols, a onetime employee at the Cincinnati Museum Center, is thrilled to see “The Cave” back open. Now an archaeologist, the University of Cincinnati graduate led programs on things like bats and subterranean environments, and she also led children through several related science experiments.

Nichols first started working there as a campus counselor in undergrad in 2008 and then again between 2015 to 2016 as a STEM educator. She left for good when it closed during renovations.

“I loved exposing young visitors to the ecosystems of caves and the processes of cave formation,” said Nichols, who’s currently working on a project in Wyoming. “The Cincinnati Museum Center ‘Cave’ is a really great way to introduce young people to the beauty of caves in a safe and controlled environment.”

Beyond its role as a science tool, “The Cave” aims to promote accessibility in education. For those who haven’t been there, it features two trails designed to make exploring the space easy for all guests, regardless of their physical abilities. 

There’s a lower trail that sends a trekker shimmying through tight walkways and down narrow stairways. The accessible upper trail offers overlooks and learning opportunities spread just outside the exhibit.

Outside the entrance, there’s a big brown bat colony and a collection of other cave-dwelling creatures, ranging from insects to fish.

“Cincinnati Museum Center is a place for curious minds of all ages and abilities to explore,” Hefner said. “Ensuring our exhibits, even one as challenging as ‘The Cave,’ are accessible to people of all abilities, ensures everyone can share these moments of wow and discovery.”

The exhibit is in CMC’s Museum of Natural History and Science near the entrance to the “Ice Age Gallery” and the stairway to the “Neil Armstrong Space Exploration Gallery.”