If it weren’t for the colorful lights and holiday tunes marking Minford’s Christmas Cave as a seasonal destination, the entrance would be easy to miss.
It’s located off a winding rural road in Appalachian Ohio, where old underground mines are about as plentiful as stars in the dark night sky: the U.S. Forest Service estimates there are around 7,000 in the state.
“In southern Ohio, it’s easier to find a place with a mine under it than it is to find one that doesn't have one,” said Tom Martin.
He grew up in Minford, and spent his lifetime exploring the tucked-away caves. In 2009, he and his wife decided to buy one.
“When I was 33 years old, I had what some would call a religious experience. We colloquially refer to it as getting saved in these parts,” he said. “So I met my Lord. I had become a born-again Christian. And I knew things had changed. And I knew that I had to do something.”
But instead of simply volunteering at his local church, Tom wanted to share his faith in a more unique way.
“Everything is cooler when it's underground,” he said.
Making the Christmas Cave
Tom’s grand idea was to use the old White Gravel Mines for outdoor ministry. For years, the couple put on a live-action drama through the cave’s underground tunnels. Dubbed the ‘Cavern of Choices,’ it offered a Christian perspective on morality.
But Tom’s vision for the cave didn’t end there. To celebrate Christmas, he wanted to decorate each of the cave’s rocky chambers and shadowy crevices with nativity scenes, so as visitors walk through the cave, the story of Jesus’s birth unfolds around them.
“If it had been just up to me, it would have never happened,” said Mindy Martin, Tom’s wife. She had reservations about the scale of the project.
“But as you can see, God made a way,” she said.
Years earlier, the Rudd family, one county over, permanently powered down the million Christmas lights decorating their property. The Christian holiday display had been a mainstay in the region for decades, and the Martins took inspiration from them.
“A lot of us around here grew up going out there and seeing that,” Tom said. “It was part of our Christmas.”
So he and Mindy assembled a crew of volunteers and transformed the White Gravel Mines into a Christmas destination.
Exploring the Christmas Cave
The mouth of the Christmas Cave is cold and dark, but soft Christmas music beckons visitors inside.
Immediately, they’re met with a scene of a faraway village. A bright star sparkles overhead.
“We're putting you back into the time period, the first century, if you will, in the little area of Nazareth and Bethlehem,” Tom said.
Further into the cave’s shadowy passageway, the music picks up in intensity.
Neon lights illuminate a handcrafted angel as he approaches a mannequin of Mary with news of her pregnancy. Farther along the cave’s path, she and Joseph pause on their way to an inn in Bethlehem. And then, the climax of the Christmas story: baby Jesus is born.
This scene is particularly apt, Tom said.
“Bethlehem didn't have barns. Bethlehem didn't have stables. Bethlehem had caves,” he said. “So when they sent them around to the sheepfold to find a room for them to bed down for the night, it might have looked just like that.”
Visitors walk among a herd of sheep, past the three magi and through a tunnel covered with glow-in-the-dark angels painted onto the cave’s gritty walls.
On Friday and Saturday nights through December, as many as 6,000 people meander through the mile-long underground trail. Last season, more than 30,000 people made the journey. It’s free and open to everyone.
“You can go deep, you can spend time, you can have a lot of moments or you can just come through and you can learn something new,” Tom said.
It’s his way of repurposing a piece of southern Ohio’s past to spread hope and joy in the present.
“This is living,” Tom said, “sharing God's message of hope with people, reaching out and helping where we can, and telling them Merry Christmas.”
