The Kentucky Cave Wars

December 20, 2019 ~ Hannah Keating ~ 1 Comment

By the 1920s, Mammoth Cave had become a popular (and profitable) tourist attraction. It had been visited by actor Edwin Booth, brother of infamous John Wilkes Booth, as well as singer Jenny Lind and violinist Ole Bull. Their impromptu performances in various chambers of the caves nicknamed “Booth’s Amphitheatre” and “Ole Bull’s Concert Hall,” sparked even more tourist traffic.

Booth’s Amphitheatre in Mammoth Cave National Park

Residents of Cave City soon realized that having control of an entrance on their land was profitable. Charging visitors to enter provided a rare source of income, as rural American farmers dealing with economic recession.

However, the competition for customers escalated. Competing farmers would purposefully place misleading signs, saying other entrances were closed or flooding, to drive the tourist traffic to where they could reap the benefits.

“Some natives estimated that by 1925 as many as a third of all visitors to the Mammoth area were diverted to the smaller, private caves by nefarious means, (37).

Mapping the Cave System in the 20th Century

December 20, 2019 ~ Hannah Keating ~ Leave a comment

In 1908, a young Max Kaemper visited Mammoth Cave. He expected to stay a week, but eventually spent eight months surveying the halls and chambers beyond the land in the Mammoth Cave Tract. Despite his impressive cartography, the Croghan heirs, who had been profiting illegally off of land and entrances they technically did not own, refused to publish Kaemper’s maps. Kaemper returned home to Germany and died in the trenches of WWII.

More and more cave enthusiasts believed that the caves all belonged to one system, and that there were entrances not on the Estate land controlled by the Croghans. This idea was pursued by Edmund Turner, who met a 25-year-old Floyd Collins in his search. He discovered the Great Onyx Cave on 1925, which became a financial success for the landowner.

In 1921, Caver George Morrison found an entrance to the Mammoth Cave system outside of the Mammoth Estate land; just southeast of the tract land, he established his own entrance and the swanky New Entrance Hotel. He was sued by the Croghan family but, due to the accuracy of his maps, was favored by the court.

His big success and the growing use of automobiles (see Model T) brought more tourists to the Kentucky Caves, sparking the competition of the Cave Wars.

“Obviously, by the middle of the 1920s, the best strategy in Kentucky’s cave warfare was to find another opening into Mammoth even farther up the road than Morrison’s – or discover a beautiful new cave there altogether, (38).” Enter Floyd Collins.

In the 1920s, it was discovered that the Croghan family had been suppressing certain maps and data (like Kamper’s work) because they were illegally profiting off of cave entrances on land they didn’t own. The Croghans fell out of power, and explorers began blasting their own entrances to the caves. Now, all entrances operated in direct competition with each other.

The last of the heirs to the Croghan estate died, and movement towards a National Park began in 1924. The park was established in May of 1926.

Kentucky Caves Before the 20th Century

December 20, 2019 ~ Hannah Keating ~ 1 Comment

The chambers in what would be known as the Mammoth Cave system (including Crystal Cave, Great Onyx Cave, etc) were used in prehistoric times. Relatively stable underground temperatures acted as shelter, minerals were mined, and torch fragments have been found along passageways.

Much of the land was part of the 200-acre “Mammoth Cave Tract,” purchased in 1798 by Valentine Simmons for saltpeter, which could be made into gunpowder. It was bought by Hyman Gratz in 1828, who capitalized on the surge of tourists. Franklin Gorin purchased it 10 years later, and his slave Stephen Bishop started guiding tourists through new routes. Bishop is now one of the most famous cave explorers, and he was the first to catch a blindfish from the caves and to cross the renowned Bottomless Pit.

Gorin sold every piece of the The Mammoth Cave Estate to Dr. John Croghan in 1839. He started the Mammoth Cave Hotel, constructed new roads, and established Mammoth as a routine stop between Louisville and Nashville. Croghan also thought that the caves had restorative properties and, in 1842, started an experimental treatment facility underground for tuberculosis patients.

Two stone cabins and eight wooden structures were built for fifteen people, who lived in the cave less than five months. Five of the patients died underground on before all of the subjects were brought out of the cave. Croghan then contracted tuberculosis and died in 1849.

Mammoth was left to Croghan’s nieces and nephews, who controlled the estate through the 1920s when tourism began to surge again.