Floyd Collins: The Story

[zenas]

Floyd Collins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Floyd Collins (July 20, 1887 - February 17, 1925) was a cave explorer and guide in central Kentucky. He is noted for having discovered Floyd Collins Crystal Cave on January 18, 1917, and is sometimes referred to as "The Greatest Caver Ever Known."

Floyd CollinsThe Collins family owned Crystal Cave, a small tourist cave in the same general area as Mammoth Cave. Floyd wanted to find another entrance to Mammoth to attract tourists and increase the meager traffic that they received. While searching, he became trapped in Sand Cave on January 30, 1925. His light went out and knocked loose a large rock that pinned his leg. It was later discovered that the rock weighed only twelve kilograms (26-1/2 pounds), but it was wedged in such a manner that neither he nor the rescuers could reach it.

He was trapped only fifty meters (150 feet) from the entrance and the attempt to rescue him became carnival-like at the surface. Shortly after the media arrived, vendors came to feed tourists. A light bulb and hot food was taken to Collins and the reporter Skeets Miller crawled into the cave to interview him. A shaft that was dug to get to the passage under Collins collapsed, and Collins died sometime before a second shaft was completed eighteen days later.

Deciding it was too dangerous to remove the body, the rescuers left it where it lay. However, eighty days later Floyd's brother Homer and some friends retrieved the body, which was kept in a glass-topped coffin in Crystal Cave for many years. Before it was interred permanently in Flint Ridge Cemetery in 1989, the body was stolen from Crystal Cave and recovered with one leg missing. After this it was kept in a more secluded portion of Crystal Cave in a chained casket. Eventually, Crystal Cave was absorbed by the National Park Service, and closed to the public.

The life and death of Floyd Collins has inspired a musical by Adam Guettel, as well as at least one film documentary, several books, a museum, and many tales and short songs by cavers. The Big Carnival is a 1951 movie loosely based on the media circus surrounding the attempted rescue. The life of Floyd Collins is also documented in the books, Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins by Roger W. Brucker and Robert K. Murray, and The Life and Death of Floyd Collins by Homer Collins, as told to Jack Lehrberger and published by Cave Books.

[wendy]

I read that book "Trapped!" it was good.

[wildmanjeff]

I went and saw his grave on cave research foundation' New Years Trip--

Something every caver should keep close to heart that can happen not to get too used to taking risks caving