Floyd Collins: Trapped in a Cold Kentucky Cave

Before iPhones and the internet, before television and radio, people went out of their way to find entertainment. If something newsworthy was happening, they wanted to be a part of it. 

Floyd Collins and the caves below Kentucky gave the nation just that in January 1925.  Hear how one man, trapped 60 feet below the surface, brought in thousands of onlookers from across the country for a two-week period. 

He wanted to be a winner in the Kentucky Cave Wars but may have sealed his fate while exploring one day. 

Transcript

Fifty episodes ago we took a look at the life and afterlife of Elmer McCurdy. Elmer was an outlaw that wasn’t able to make a name for himself until after he died. His body was put on display for years, first at the local funeral home and then as part of a traveling carnival show. Then it was lost and finally it was found and what was left of his mummified corpse was put up in a spooky fair attraction with all of the other props.  

A crewmember from the ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ television show was asked to take down the body, as it didn’t look right in the shot. They were filming the episode “The Carnival of Spies.” The dutiful crew member went to move what he assumed to be a mannequin, when suddenly one of the arms broke off in his hands revealing a bone. Finally someone was like, hey, that’s a body, not a prop and McCurdy was given a proper burial.

As the 1800’s rolled into the 20th century, having a dead body, real or fake, was a money maker for carnival owners and the like. Pay a couple of cents and stand near this person who used to be somebody. 

Scare the kids, nauseate the wife, take a photo, tell your friends.

In 1880’s Paris; folks lined up for miles to see the bodies on display at the Paris Morgue. Corpses that were retrieved from the nearby river or local streets were placed behind glass on marble slabs in the hopes that a body would be recognized and claimed. Before there were refrigeration systems, large blocks of ice were placed above the bodies allowing cold water to drip down upon them. 

When the Paris Morgue began the practice of showcasing bodies, no one realized that it would become a spectacle and capture the imagination of the public. No one cared about identifying anyone, they just wanted to witness the gruesome sights. After three days a photograph was taken or a wax cast would be made and they’d rotate in some fresh bodies.  

In 1886 a four year old girl was found dead with a mysterious bruise on her hand. When the Paris Morgue announced her arrival, she drew over 150,000 people while behind the glass. 

The Paris Morgue was a regular tourist destination that you could read about in guide books. It was open seven days a week from sunrise to sunset. At its peak it was bringing in 40,000 visitors a day. 

“What do you want to do today, kids?”

“Paris Morgue!”

While this episode isn’t entirely about a dead man on display, it does touch on that. It’s really about how stories and events and any opportunity to be a part of something different and macabre captivated the planet a century ago. There were no cell phones, no internet, no television. Just word of mouth and the daily paper. People needed entertainment. 

One of the many things that I found interesting while researching this episode was seeing photos of a massive crowd of people in a rural area. Some folks appeared to be helping, some were benefiting, but all of them were altering their daily routine in some way to be a part of a tragic event and watch it unfold in person.

Tents were erected for people to sell souvenirs and in the middle of one picture was a truck selling hamburgers. All of this as a man lay trapped nearby, unsure if he would see the sunlight again.  

Episode 63 - Floyd Collins: Trapped in a Cold Kentucky Cave

William Floyd Collins was born on the Collins family farm, on July 20th, 1887. The farm was located approximately four miles east of Mammoth Cave near the Green River in Kentucky. Leonidas and Martha Jane gave birth to eight children in total, William Floyd was the third. 

From the time he was six years old, William Floyd, who went by Floyd, was exploring nearby caves all by himself. He made money by selling Native American artifacts found in the caves to tourists at the Mammoth Cave Hotel. 

In 1910, at the age of 23, Floyd discovered his first cave, which he named ‘Donkey's Cave’, on the Collins farm. Two years later he was hired as a cave tour guide by a geologist named Edmund Turner. The pair would go on to help in the discovery of Dossey's Dome Cave in 1912 and the Great Onyx Cave in 1915. 

That same year, Floyd’s mother passed away due to tuberculosis and his father remarried. 

In September of 1917, Floyd was exploring along a bluff on the family’s property. As he walked he suddenly felt a rush of cool air escaping from a hole in the ground. He got to work on widening the hole enough for him to be able to lower himself down into a cavity. Two months later, after digging down further, Floyd discovered the sinkhole entrance that would later be used as the entrance for the “Great Crystal Cave.” 

The family worked for months to turn Floyd’s discovery into a proper show cave. In April of the following year it was opened to tourists. Unfortunately for Floyd and his family, not many folks came to visit the Great Crystal Cave due to the remote location of the Collins family farm.

The cave did see a brief spike in interest in January of 1921 after a news article ran reporting on the latest findings inside previously unexplored sections of the Great Crystal Cave. 

From the Courier-Journal, Louisville Kentucky, January 20th, 1921:

Hart County Grotto with Cathedral, Just Discovered, May Rival Mammoth Cave 

In underground galleries never before visited by white men, a human skeleton was discovered last Monday, in Great Crystal Cave in Hart County.

Coincident with the discovery of the bones, was the finding of a great underground cathedral, which, it is said, will rival the wonders of Mammoth Cave. An avenue, half a mile long, and almost as level as a boulevard, was found by explorers. 

Here, the dome rises 200 feet above the bed of the cave. It is on a terraced ledge above the floor of the newly discovered gallery that the skeleton was unearthed from beneath a pile of drift. 

Floyd Collins, on whose farm the cave was found three years ago, discovered the skeleton and the subterranean galleries. Overturning a huge boulder which blocked a passageway, he thrust his torch into the aperture and crawled through. A wonderful scene opened up before his eyes.

As far as he could see the torch cast giant shadows on the walls. Others of the exploring party followed Collins and, leaving a signal fire at the opening, they began investigating the great underground passage. It was while looking for driftwood for the signal fire that the skeleton was unearthed.

The skeleton was left where it was found and Dr. E. D. Turner of Cave City was called to examine it. He pronounced it that of an aborigine and perhaps a race that preceded the Indians in Kentucky. No white man had ever before traversed the grotto. 

The bones will be removed from the cave and taken to Cave City. An effort will be made to have scientific men pass on their antiquity. 

The newly discovered avenue was named Onyx Avenue by citizens of Cave City who visited the place in crowds following the heralding of the new Kentucky wonder. Many miles of smaller avenues, which yet may disclose new wonders, have yet to be traversed.

As the years passed and interest in Crystal Cave waned, Floyd Collins continued his exploration of the area in hopes of finding a new entrance to the Mammoth Cave or, better yet, a new, unknown cave in a better location. He made gentlemen's agreements with numerous local landowners along the main highway. If he was able to find what he was searching for, they could go into business together and share the responsibilities and profits of a new cave. Floyd learned of a potential cave which was located on the property of a man named Beesly Doyel. 

It was in January of 1925 that Collins explored and expanded this new prospect which would come to be known as Sand Cave. Collins, who often worked alone, was able to squeeze and contort his body through narrow passageways as slender as nine inches tall. He reported to family and friends that he’d even located a large grotto chamber. 

As the days and weeks passed, he continued to work on creating an entrance for tourists while scouting further into the cave. On Friday, January 30th, as the temperatures hung in the low teens, Collins was deep inside Sand Cave, inching through a narrow stretch on his stomach. He’d push the lantern ahead and then use that same arm to drag himself forward, there wasn’t enough space to free both arms. 

Up ahead, he could see that the cave began to open up a bit, but his lantern was running low and starting to flicker. He’d been in situations where he’d lost light before and it was not where he wanted to be right now, in an unfamiliar cave. He arrived at a spot where he could turn his body around and began the long, slow journey back above ground.  

At some point, Collins knocked over his lamp, extinguishing the light completely. In the darkness he misplaced his foot on what he thought to be a stable wall of the cave. The rocks shifted and a giant boulder dislodged from above and pinned his leg in the tight shaft. 

Gravel and rock fell around the stone, further trapping Floyd Collins. He was still nearly 150 feet from the entrance, 60 feet below the earth’s surface, and alone in the pitch black with no way to move.

The next day, Floyd’s neighbors realized that he’d never returned from the cave. It wasn’t long before one of the members of the search party located his coat hanging outside of the makeshift Sand Cave entrance. None of the neighbors had experience inside caves, and most were too large or not agile enough to fit through the various paths. 

A 17-year-old boy named Jewell Estes volunteered to go in and made it inside far enough to communicate with Collins, who told the boy that he was unable to move. 

The neighbors quickly got a hold of Floyd’s brothers, Homer and Marshall. Homer, who lived nearby, rushed to the scene.

He was able to get close enough to his brother to bring him food and water that he delivered from just above where Floyd’s body lay trapped. 

On Sunday, the crowd outside the cave entrance began to grow with numerous locals arriving at the scene. Homer began digging around the area and Marshall offered $500 to anyone that could free his brother. Specifically, he asked for any area surgeon that would be brave enough to go into the cave, chloroform Floyd and then amputate the stuck leg. There were no takers.

Without a true leader appointed in the rescue effort, the scene became chaotic. Many of the volunteers that agreed to deliver food and drink to Floyd, got nervous inside the tight and dark passageways and gave up, hiding the food in crevices within the tunnel.

By Monday, February 2nd, the news of a trapped cave explorer spread across the state and region. Floyd was understandably in rough shape. His brother Homer told onlookers that he’s cold, shaky, and numb. Conversations with Floyd saw the man teetering between periods of stupor and lucidity.

A journalist from the Louisville Courier-Journal was sent to Cave City to check in on the story. William “Skeets” Miller, nicknamed skeets for his mosquito-like size and energy,   soon arrived and spoke with Homer about the situation. “If you want information,” Homer stated, “there’s the hole right over there. You can go down and find out for yourself.”

Skeets Miller accepted the invitation and entered Sand Cave. He emerged later, having seen for himself the rough shape that Floyd was in, more concerned with assisting in rescuing the man than getting his news story. 

Later that afternoon, Lieutenant Robert Burdon of the Special Police-Fire Rescue Team  arrived at the scene. He was able to get down to Floyd and secure a harness around his chest. From outside the cave, men pulled on the harness repeatedly, causing Floyd’s upper body to slam against the rocky ceiling, injuring him further.  

By evening time, nearly 200 people were gathered outside of the cave. Two massive tents were built, one that sold refreshments and one that was used for first-aid. 

The following day saw Floyd Collins become the top news story in the nation. Meanwhile, tension around the entrance worsened. Everyone that showed up had a new idea and folks began to take sides. A monument company from Louisville wanted to chisel away the rock above Floyd but Floyd’s good friend, John Gerald wouldn’t allow it. The Superintendent of the Kentucky Rock Asphalt Company offered to dig out a rescue shaft but Floyd’s brothers believed that doing so would cause a full collapse. 

After a failed attempt to use jacks in order to lift the boulder pinning Floyd’s leg, Skeets and other volunteers successfully ran a string of light bulbs down to Floyd, helping with light and warmth. 

More and more people arrived to catch a glimpse of the rescue efforts for themselves. Tempers between locals and ‘outsiders’ flared and the National Guard was called in to assist with crowd control. 

Meanwhile, Skeets returned to Floyd’s side deep below the earth and took notes on everything Floyd said about his time stuck in the cave.

“The first night I spent yelling at the top of my voice. I knew my chance was slim, but I couldn’t give up without doing something. So I just shouted and shouted. After a long time I was unable to call out any more. I got hoarse. I struggled on, though, until I finally lost consciousness. Maybe I slept. I don’t know. But I felt better when I awoke. 

Surely, I thought, no man was ever trapped like this. I prayed as hard as I could. I begged God to send help to me. Finally I heard a voice and it sounded better than anything I’d ever heard. I called back and got an answer, and found it was Jewell. He couldn’t get to me, but before long Clyde Hester came back to me. He told me it was Saturday morning.

My brothers came down Saturday afternoon and saw how I was fixed. They tried to dig me out but they couldn’t. Saturday night I felt better. A blanket had been brought to me and it helped to keep out the cold. I was numb all over but I felt warmer after I was covered. I couldn’t move and was getting awfully weak.

Sunday, after attempt after attempt to save me had failed, I began to lose confidence. I prayed continually. Sometimes I would be in a stupor. I could hear people coming in, but they seemed far away. I could hear voices, but I could not remember what was said. Sunday night I slept some. I dreamed of angels and I awoke praying.

Monday was the first day when strangers came back to me. I kept working around, whenever I felt strong enough, thinking I could twist myself free. But each time I could hear pebbles falling into the deep hole right behind me. It caused me to shudder. I kept thinking what would happen if the rock above me would fall? I kept trying to drive my mind to something else, but it wasn’t much use. How could I? You’ve been here and you know… you know why. I couldn’t do much to help those who came to help me, but I knew a lot of people were willing to do all in their power. This gave me courage.

Monday night was a night of agony. My foot pained awful. It felt like it was going to break off. If I as much as wiggled a toe, pains shot through me. I don’t know how long it was before my brother came in with something to eat, but it seemed ages. I had some whisky and it warmed me up a whole lot. I could talk for a while, but it wasn’t long before I was unconscious or asleep. I don’t know which. 

Tuesday morning. Four days down here and no nearer freedom than I was the first day. How will it end? Will I get out? I have faced death before. It doesn’t frighten me. But it is so long. Oh god, be merciful. 

Tonight I felt better than at any time since I was caught. I was mighty weak a few hours ago… mighty weak. So many plans have been tried, so many people, and so little has been done that I’m beginning to get fearful again. I’m going to get out. I feel it. Something tells me to be brave and I’m going to be.” 

Floyd then demanded that Skeets leave, get warm, get rest… but asked that he please come back as soon as possible. The pair were becoming fast friends.

Wednesday the 4th saw numerous setbacks in the rescue attempt. With so many people going in and out of the cave, cracks were beginning to form along the passageway. At four in the morning, the path was completely blocked by a large collapse. They would have to find a different route to get to Floyd. 

As Skeets’ interview with Floyd Collins reached the front of the New York Times, volunteers were feeling defeated and churches across the country were holding impromptu services for the trapped man. 

On Thursday, The Governor of Kentucky, William J. Fields placed National Guard Brigadier General Henry Denhart in command of the rescue. He gathered everyone’s attention and stated, “It is now up to you men to drill through the ground directly to Collin’s side. Spare no expense. The purse strings of Kentucky are open.”

It was well after noon before a decision was made on how to proceed. It was decided that drills and dynamite be excluded when digging the hole. It would have to be done manually with picks and shovels. The cave drew air inward which meant that any exhaust producing equipment would send potentially suffocating fumes into the shaft. 

Sand Cave was becoming overwhelmed with people and supplies. Businesses around the country were sending items in hopes of helping the rescue efforts. 

By Thursday evening a crew of 75 men were working on the rescue shaft. The goal was two feet an hour. After five hours of getting through four feet of mud and three feet of mixed rock the shaft was only wide enough for three people to work in. Two feet an hour quickly became one foot an hour.

Looking down from a hilltop campfire, a young woman wept quietly by herself. She stared at the cave opening, hoping for a miracle. 22-year-old Alma Clark was Floyd’s fiance. The pair were to be married on March 2nd but what not many people knew was that they had intended on eloping that day. 

For whatever reason there were objections to the couple’s marriage. It was Floyd’s idea to elope and come back as husband and wife, objections be damned. 

As the sun came up on Friday morning, Floyd had officially spent a week underground. Outsiders massively outnumbered the locals who were beginning to feel squeezed out of their own story. Nearly 400 automobiles clogged the Cave City roadways as rumors and lies began to swirl, largely embellished by reporters who were growing weary of the slow moving rescue. One of the nastier rumors was that the whole rescue operation was a publicity stunt to draw in visitors.

While the process was well organized, the shaft had only reached 17 feet in depth, not even a third of the way to Floyd Collins. Various motion picture crews arrived on the scene and witnessed both Homer Collins and Floyd’s friend Johnnie Gerald get banned from the rescue site.

Over the course of the weekend, the National Guard set up a barbed-wire fence to secure the rescue site and the National Red Cross arrived to handle the feeding of workers. That Sunday would eventually become known as “Carnival Sunday” in the press as an estimated 10,000 people from at least 20 different states descended upon Sand Cave. Outside of the barbed-wire there was food being sold, entertainment and souvenirs. 

At the end of the weekend they were down a total of 23 feet.

According to the National Parks Service website, there were four main theories making their way around the camp, none of them good. 1. It’s a colossal hoax to lure tourists to Kentucky’s Cave Country. 2. Floyd Collins was murdered by someone unknown after he entered the cave. 3. Food and water are purposely being withheld from him so he will die and 4. Collins is still alive and travels out of the cave and back each night.

Due to the severity of some of these made up stories a Military Court of inquiry was brought together in Cave City to investigate the suspicions. While the amount of onlookers continued to grow, the number of actual volunteers dropped. 

Rain fell hard during the early part of the next week slowing progress even more. By Wednesday of that week a cold front moved in and rain turned back to snow.

On Thursday, February 12th, as workers neared the 50 foot mark with numb hands and feet, Floyd remained trapped for his 13th day. He’d not spoken to anyone or eaten in over a week but scientists believed that he was still alive based on crude devices they’d constructed and attached to the string of lights that monitored sound and vibrations. 

Friday the 13th marked two full weeks that Floyd Collins remained trapped underground. Rumors spread that he’d been saved but it wasn’t true. They were getting closer however. On Valentine’s Day the shaft was down 55 feet but the sides were starting to cave. Workers changed their angle and worked faster. Meanwhile the weather warmed again, and paired with heavy rainfall, caused nearly two feet of standing water that needed to be pumped out constantly. 

It wasn’t until Monday, February 16th, at 1:30pm that rescuers finally broke into the Sand Cave passage. A miner named Ed Brenner was the first to locate Floyd Collins’ body. Unfortunately he was "cold and apparently dead." Floyd's friend, Johnnie Gerald, and a few others were allowed into the tunnel to positively identify their friend’s body. It was estimated that Floyd had likely passed away on February 13th. 

Even more unfortunate was the fact that Floyd’s leg was still trapped and the rescue shaft was deteriorating at an alarming rate. The difficult decision to leave Floyd’s body inside the cave was made, they couldn’t risk any more lives.

From here the story that gripped an entire nation only gets stranger. With his body remaining entombed in the cave, funeral services were held on the surface with an empty casket. Floyd’s brother Homer was understandably displeased so two months later, he and a small group of friends reopened the shaft, dug a new tunnel on the opposite side and recovered his remains on April 23rd. 

Floyd’s body was embalmed, displayed during a 2-day visitation and taken to the family farm for burial near the Great Crystal Cave. Floyd’s father renamed the cave to "Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave" in 1926 but sold the home and cave in 1927. Dr. Harry Thomas, a dentist who already owned Mammoth Onyx Cave and Hidden River Cave was the new owner and one of his first official acts as owner was to place Collins' body in a glass-topped coffin and display it within Crystal Cave. 

In March of 1929 Floyd’s body was stolen from the coffin. It was later found in a nearby field… but not all of it. The person had kept the injured left leg. Instead of burying it back in the ground like civilized humans, the remains were taken back down into Crystal Cave and chains were added to the coffin to keep it in place. 

In 1941, Mammoth Cave National Park was established and In 1961, Crystal Cave was purchased by Mammoth Cave National Park and closed to the public permanently. The Collins family, after fighting for years, finally got the National Park Service to re-bury Floyd at Mammoth Cave Baptist Church Cemetery in 1989.

The Floyd Collins story was officially the third biggest piece of news that took place between World War I and World War II, the first and second involved Detroit born Charles Lindbergh. It remains one of the key stories discussed when the subject of the Kentucky Cave Wars is brought up. Rival cave owners battled in the courtroom, as well as along the roads, for the tourist dollars passing through Kentucky’s cave country. Things got nasty and dangerous in the late 19th and early 20th century. Floyd Collins was a part of that as he desperately searched for a new show cave that ended up being his grave. 

In 1951, Kirk Douglas starred in the drama, “Ace in the Hole” which was largely written around the Floyd Collins story. 

Numerous books have been written about Collins' life and death. In 1996, an off-broadway musical entitled “Floyd Collins” opened and in 2006, Billy Bob Thornton optioned the film rights to Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins and a screenplay was adapted. Unfortunately nothing has come of it.

A man named Fiddlin' John Carson recorded "The Death of Floyd Collins", a song he wrote as the events were taking place, in 1925. Here’s a snippet. 

(play song)

Floyd Collins was just a man looking for opportunity. Unfortunately he did it alone. His hard work paid off, but at the expense of his death. I hope you enjoyed learning about Mr. Collins as much as I did. I will have tons of images and stories up on the site shortly, Curator135.com. 

Also, I am pleased to announce that the song you heard at the beginning of the episode has been picked up by iTunes. You can purchase or just listen to ‘Collins in a Cave’ on iTunes now. 

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