Last month Rhonda and I once again traveled the route of the World’s Longest Yard Sale along Highway 127 in Kentucky and Tennessee. Once again we started just south of Cincinnati and made our way to Crossville Tennessee. We set out on Wednesday morning and by Friday we had had enough. It has been our experience that after noon on Friday “The 127” becomes a frustrating route of diminishing returns. Traffic slows to a crawl, parking becomes a problem and our patience gets frayed like an old pair of blue jean cutoffs. Don’t even get me started on Saturday. You’re a better man than me if you can survive a Saturday on the 127.
So this year we decided to veer off to Cave City, Kentucky on Friday afternoon and chase the ghost of old Floyd Collins. I’ve always found myself drawn to antiheroes — the men and women who manage to achieve notoriety and great things while orbiting around the fringe of the establishment. Some of these personalities are predestined for greatness while others achieve it in spite of themselves. Not to be confused with an underdog, an antihero is often doomed to be critiqued (and usually ostracized) by others whose achievements could never stack up over a lifetime.
Floyd Collins is one of those people. Collins was long, lean, logical and legendary. He remains history’s most famous spelunker. Not only because of the way he lived, but also because of the way he died. William Floyd Collins was born on July 20, 1887 in Auburn, Kentucky. He was the third child of Leonidas Collins and Martha Jane Burnett. Collins had five brothers and two sisters, including another brother named Floyd — not uncommon for the time as frontier families often feared that a child might not survive to adulthood.
Central Kentucky, nestled firmly in America’s limestone belt, is not the best for farming. The soil is poor and thin and the bluegrass it produces is best for livestock grazing rather than crops. However it does produce some of the best caves in the world. Floyd’s home rested smack dab in the middle of a region riddled by hundreds of miles of interconnected caverns, the most notable of which is Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest cave system in the world. Mammoth Cave became an unlikely tourist attraction after the War of 1812 when British soldiers ventured into it. Soon several other caves opened to attract the adventure-seeking tourist. At that time the region represented the far westernmost frontier and a trip to an underground cave system was the capstone to a thrilling adventure. The roads, little more than livestock paths back then, were in rough shape and accommodations were scant. Eventually a train was put in that would stop at the various caves and a series of grand hotels were constructed.
The biggest business in the area was Mammoth Cave, but there were others: Great Onyx Cave, Colossal Cavern, Great Crystal Cave, Dorsey Cave, Salt Cave, Indian Cave, Parlor Cave, Diamond Cave, and Doyles Cave. These holes were all owned and operated by men who charged admission to the visiting tourists. Visitors were more than happy to pay for the privilege. At the center of it all was Cave City. Here was the depot that brought wealthy visitors in on the hour, all hungry for adventure. And Cave City residents were more than happy to assist these gullible visitors by relieving them of their cash. As we will see later in this article, not much has changed in 200 years.
From his earliest days, Collins spent his time crouching, crawling and slithering on his belly through holes a groundhog would find challenging to navigate. Floyd learned early that “there was money in them-there holes.” He spent his time in those damp, dark holes collecting arrowheads, “Tommyhawks,” and moccasins to sell to the tourists by the pocketful. In time, visiting professors from American colleges and universities discovered the young spelunker’s talent for acquisition and offered good sums of money for any Native American Indian artifact that Floyd would send them. Some of Floyd’s discoveries can be found in the Chicago Field Museum to this day. Floyd was particularly active in the wintertime. He would walk for miles up and down the bluegrass hills looking for telltale puffs of smoke rising from the ground. Floyd knew it was steam rising from an underground passage that just might lead to the next great cave.
Floyd, a loner, would often disappear into the underground mazes for hours to explore cracks, crevices and sink-holes, only to unexpectedly pop up in a field or woodlot several miles from his point of entry. Collins usually took along a lantern, a can or two of beans, 70 feet of rope, and a compass on those solitary expeditions. The compass wasn’t to guide him, he claimed, but instead was a good luck charm. Although known as history’s greatest spelunker, Collins broke every rule of caving. He usually traveled alone, never told anyone where he was going, always covered his tracks, often caved at night, followed the water and, to his ultimate doom, every discovery was kept a closely guarded secret.
Floyd Collins first tasted celebrity when he discovered Crystal Cave in 1917 (now part of the Flint Ridge Cave System of the Mammoth Cave National Park). Twenty-seven year old Collins had chased a groundhog down a hole on his father’s farm. The hole turned out to be a passage to a large cavern Floyd called “White Crystal Cave.” He owned one half and his father owned the other. They went into business, selling options on the cave to a neighbor named Johnny Gerald who’d made a little money buying and selling tobacco. Johnny and Floyd took turns; one of them stood on the side of the road and tried to talk the tourists inside; the other guided them through the caves.
The pair worked unceasingly and spent every dime they had opening their new cave and making it accessible to visitors. It was Floyd who came up with the colorful names for the interior cave formations designed to dazzle visitors. In the years after World War I, many visitors followed Floyd down the Valley of Decision to the Devil’s Kitchen, left though the Gypsum Route and into the Scotchman’s Trap, where the cave REALLY began. Eventually Collins guided his guests through the bowels of Flint Ridge and, much to the dismay of rival cave owners, into the surrounding caves. Floyd’s tour led his guests down Grand Canyon Avenue to see Nanny Ramsey’s Flower Garden of gypsum crystals, a route that eventually connected to Mammoth Cave.
Soon the Collins family found themselves smack dab in the middle of the “Cave Wars” of the early 1920s; a bitter competition to exploit the bounty of caves for commercial profit. Trouble was, Crystal Cave was the last cave on the road from Cave City. By the time tourists discovered it, they were out of money and interest. During the Cave War years, cave owners competed against each other to bring in visitors. The most common tactic was to deploy a man, known as a “capper,” who would suddenly rush out of the bushes, hop onto the running board of any car traveling the rugged road to Mammoth to excitedly inform the passengers that Mammoth had collapsed or was under quarantine from Consumption (now known as Tuberculosis). These cappers would steer visitors to their cave instead.
During the Cave Wars era, if someone found an entrance to a rival cave on their property, there was nothing to prevent them from exploiting that entrance and making money leading tours. So Floyd, who’s Crystal Cave was the back door entrance to Mammoth, was constantly on the lookout for an undiscovered “new front door” entrance. In the winter of 1925 Floyd decided to take a gamble on an overhanging sandstone ledge covering a small cave on the property of Bee Doyle. The site would be the first cave tourists would pass on the road to Mammoth from Cave City. Collins and Doyle had agreed that, if a new entrance could be found, they would split the profits 50/50.
On January 30, 1925, true to form, Floyd ventured alone into “Sand Cave” in search of that new entrance. Collins had known of this spot since his childhood days and had already done some preliminary work with a stick of dynamite to dislodge a couple of huge precariously perched boulders that guarded the entrance. The Sand Cave site is nestled in a wooded surrounding, hidden by overhanging rock ledges, each sheltering a crescent-shaped spot. The constant dripping of water leeching through the sandstone kept the soil moist, cool and plantless. That day, Floyd, with rope and lantern, entered the tight, mud-lined passage alone and unnoticed. The 150 foot claustrophobic mud-slicked tube could only be slithered through in most spots, with little room to crawl, let alone sit up or stand. It was absolute darkness and the damp, rock-strewn passage turned, narrowed and switched back underneath itself. At times, Floyd, unable to turn around, was forced to wriggle upside down to traverse its depths.
Floyd had been down this cave before, having earlier removed some large stones and other obstructions to reveal a 10-foot-long chute so tight and steeply sloped, that forced him to drop into it feet first for risk of being unable to push himself up and out backwards to a turnaround spot. After Floyd dropped down the chute to the bottom, he worked his hobnailed boots into a narrow crevice, referred to as a “pinch” by cavers, where he met the chute horizontally at 90 degrees. Collins believed this spot to be the final secret link into a much larger cavern below because he could feel the cave winds blow as he inched his feet farther into it. The coffin-like crevice rose only about six inches above Floyd’s chest, tight on each side, and was perhaps ten feet long before it opened onto a wide ledge overlooking a 60-foot drop.
Floyd, encased under a 4’ x 4’ square, two ton block of solid limestone ceiling and boxed in by sidewalls composed of loose stones, pebbles, sand and mud, was careful to avoid bumping or displacing anything likely to cause a collapse. Collins was muddy, soaked and sweating as he attached his rope securely and let it drop into the 60-foot precipice he had yet to see. His plan was to climb back out, regroup and prepare himself for the final push towards discovery. He wriggled head first back into the tight gravelly crevice leading to the steep, serpentine chute he’d just come in by. Pushing the kerosene lantern ahead of him as far as he could, he would then twist and squirm, shrugging ahead inch by inch till reaching the lantern before repeating the pattern by pushing ahead. Suddenly, Floyd’s lantern fell over, broke and went out.
Normally, the cave-savvy Floyd would take it in stride, but this development was unnerving. On his way into the tight pinch Floyd had noticed a peculiar hanging stone and had been particularly careful not to disturb it. Now, as he “crawfished” backward in the dark, his knee dislodged the 27-pound rock and it dropped, wedging his left foot into v-shaped groove in the floor of the passage like a guillotine. His progress halted, Floyd lay on his back, tilted to his left at a 45 degree angle, arms pinned down to his sides, staring at a solid limestone block five inches above his face. With lime water dripping maddeningly onto his face, Floyd discovered the more he struggled, the more loose stone and dirt settled around him. Soon he was frozen in place. Floyd Collins was trapped in a narrow crawl way, 55 feet underground, and worse, no one knew he was there.
Next Week — Part 2: Floyd Collins-Legendary Spelunker
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
