Mammoth Cave: One Family's Story

By Melanie Miller-Inman

The author's family has, over the years, fallen in love with Mammoth Cave National Park, which is located near Cave City, Kentucky. The love of this wonderful and mysterious place started back in the 1960s with the author's father, J. David Miller, who was there as a teen, trapping deer with the United States government, and spread to the author's mother, Judy, then on to the author and her husband, Tony, in between the years of 1980 and 2004.

The author wishes to share with her readers her family's love of an amazing place in southwestern Kentucky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885050982

Book preview

Mammoth Cave

ONE FAMILY’S STORY

Melanie Miller-Inman

Copyright © 2023 Melanie Miller-Inman

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88505-097-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88505-098-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is dedicated to the memory of a highly intelligent and wonderful man who not only instilled the love of Mammoth Cave National Park in me as a child and inspired me to later sit down to write this book, but also raised me beside my mom, Judy Miller. This book is dedicated to the man whom I think is the world’s greatest dad, and he is my dad, J. David Miller. (I love and miss you so much, Dad!)

This book is also dedicated to my favorite person (after my dad, of course!), and that would be one Tony Inman, for whom a great deal of love and input has come from in writing this book. This is also not to mention that Tony has put up with me when I had writer’s block and other forms of annoyance in my life while I wrote this book.

I would also like to dedicate this book to the memory of my childhood acquaintance Lesa Hubbard, who passed away around February 27, 2019, after a prolonged illness. I hope that Lesa is bouncing around in the afterlife and she is having herself an excellent time; heaven knows that Lesa definitely deserves it!

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Into the Darkness

Chapter 2: About the Cave Tours at Mammoth Cave

Chapter 3: At Mammoth Cave National Park Itself

Chapter 4: Floyd Collins and His Little Accident

Chapter 5: Safety, Safety, Safety!

Chapter 6: Stephen Bishop, Slavery, Tuberculosis, Cave Tours, and Early Cave Exploration

Chapter 7: War of 1812, Paint, Earthquakes, Mummies, and Twinkies

Chapter 8: Mammoth Cave as Seen from the Eyes of People over the Approximate Last 150 Years

Chapter 9: Historical Tour

Chapter 10: Frozen Niagara Tour

Chapter 11: Domes and Dripstones Tour

Chapter 12: Cleveland Avenue Tour

Chapter 13: Wild Cave Tour

Chapter 14: Violet City Tour

Chapter 15: Grand Avenue Tour

Chapter 16: Star Chamber Tour

Chapter 17: The Mammoth Passage Tour

Chapter 18: Gothic Avenue Tour

Chapter 19: Some Information on Cave City Itself, Its Hotels, and Other Places to Stay in the Area

Chapter 20: Other Things to Do Around the Park Area Besides the Caves, Both in Cave City and Near the Cave System

Chapter 21: Other Caves That Are Located Near Mammoth Cave

Chapter 22: Weddings, Graduations, and Other Things Possible to Be Held at the Park

Chapter 23: Conclusion

Appendix 1: Mammoth Cave Photos over the Years, as Seen by the Author and Other Folks in 2006

Appendix 2: Mammoth Cave Photos over the Years, as Seen by the Author and Other Folks in 2009

Appendix 3: Corvette Museum—Before and After the Sinkhole Occurred at the Museum

Appendix 4: Some of the Historical People Who Were Involved with the Cave Exploration

Appendix 5: Guntown Mountain, Wildlife Animal Museum, and Other Things in and Around Cave City

Appendix 6: Wildlife Museum and Hillbilly Hound Mini Golf

A Quick Note from the Author

References

CHAPTER 1

Into the Darkness

As you enter Mammoth Cave itself, you say goodbye to the above-ground world of daylight, regular nature, and all the normal trappings of above-ground life as you know it. You enter a world of darkness, shadows, mysteries, wonders, and things that literally go bump in the dark. There are dripping or quickly running water, musty smells, varying degrees of slick spots on the floor, loose sand or dirt floors, the occasional falling of rocks, running rivers, and all manner of animals live inside the cave as well.

One thing that a person must keep in mind as he or she enters the cave is that this cave is the home of animals that live here and the cave is as it has been since the dawn of time—a place steeped in mystery that is ever growing, an ever-changing place as the rivers Styx and Echo dig deeper and deeper over time and create new passages for folks to see and discover in the future. The animals that live in and around the cave will not necessarily attack a person as long as you stay with your group and leave those cave animals alone in their natural habitat, even though you might have a bat fly in your face, as the author’s husband, Tony, once experienced firsthand on a cave tour years ago. As a fair warning, some of those animals do not have eyes to see you, nor do they have any pigmentation to their skin, since they live deep inside of the cave and never venture out to see the daylight and the outside world that we live in the above-ground world.

Something to keep in mind is that depending on which tour that you pick from what is available is that certain tours have restrictions on them that are not open to be modified for anybody, according to the national park’s web page, https://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm. An example of a restriction on a tour is on the hardest cave tour that is available, known as the Wild Cave Tour. According to the brochure that is on Mammoth Cave’s web page, which shows what tours are available and the particular details on those tours, it says explicitly that you have to have to meet the following requirements for the Wild Cave Tour: Chest or hip measurement must not exceed 42 inches; if you are larger, you may not physically pass through the crawl spaces.

As a side note, the author has been informed by a reliable source (that reliable source being a park ranger, actually) that the crawl spaces that are on the Wild Cave Tour are such that you have to even hold your face looking in one way or the other, as you would climb up through the rather-tight crawl spaces on that cave tour. There was also something to keep in mind on such a tour as the Wild Cave Tour, and it is that if you were to actually meet the physical requirements mentioned above, you also cannot suffer from claustrophobia, or you would have some serious issues due to the seriously confining areas that you would be crawling through on the tour itself.

It would also be a good idea if you suffer from acrophobia (also known as being the fear of heights) to not go on the tour either, because it will be necessary to walk on several ledges and you will not be able to see past the ledge toward the opposite wall. This is also to mention that there will only be lamplight available in these spots, and it would be coming from the headlamp perched on top of your own head.

When it comes to the cave tours, there are several types of caving tours available, more of them being available during the warm weather months, then less or different ones will be available during the fall and winter seasons. The one tour that will be almost always available (because it is the most popular one and usually sells out rather quickly during the summer months) is the Historical Tour. This tour is known to be booked up completely at certain times and will fill up quickly on the later tours, as the earlier tours fill completely up and leave to go inside of the cave.

Another interesting cave tour that is available to the public is the Violet City Tour. This particular tour encompasses part of the Historical Tour and goes through different areas of the cave after it diverges from the Historical Tour at the huge rock formation called the Giant’s Coffin inside the cave. The Violet City Tour is usually offered once a day during the summer months, and it is usually somewhat early in the morning. (We are talking at 9:00 a.m. approximately). If you would like to see what the Giant’s Coffin looks like now, by the way, you can see a photo of it in appendix 2.

Of course, all the cave tours will be individually discussed in some of the later chapters, because there are details and interesting facts that involve each tour that warrant each cave tour getting its own chapter. Some of these details involve which routes the particular tour takes, if it overlaps another tour and, if so, where the similarities start and end to where the tours go on different routes. There will also be particulars of how long a tour ideally should take inside the cave. For example, the Domes and Dripstones Tour takes approximately two hours, according to the national park. Domes and Dripstones also overlaps with the Frozen Niagara tour.

As for the national park itself, as of 2017, both the author and her husband, Tony (who will be mentioned in this book several times and his antidotes about certain cave tours in later chapters), have discovered the issues with not getting cell phone service there at the national park with certain cell carriers. This issue will be discussed in its own chapter, right along about carrying cell phones and other electronic items through the cave itself. There will also be discussions on using GPS and cell phones as well as getting lost at the national park due to there being no signals on cell phones at the national park (more on that in chapter 3.) There will also be discussion of picking out which tours would work best for your group in chapter 2.

Even on the cave’s web page, it clearly states that there is to be no flash photography inside the cave, and it is due to preventing injury to others on the tours due to lighting issues with the flash of the camera’s flashbulb itself. Along with the lighting issues and the electronical devices, this information will be discussed in the aforementioned chapter on cell phones and electronical devices in and around the cave itself.

The author has contacted the cave system as to why we can no longer take flash photography inside the cave, and that is because people were having issues with tripping when the flash of the flashbulbs go off while inside the cave. According to the e-mails that the author received on March 9, 2019, the lovely Donna Shand informed me of the situation with the removal of the flash photography, but we are still able to take photography without flashbulbs.

Speaking of injuries, any book on Mammoth Cave would be remiss if it did not mention one Floyd Collins and what happened with him in the Mammoth Cave area. Floyd Collins was a cave explorer who lived around the turn of the twentieth century. Floyd Collins had himself a rather unfortunate accident that made him famous for what happened to him during and after the accident in the nearby Sand Cave. Floyd Collins is getting his own chapter because there is a whole lot to be said about somebody who is used as a major example of a cautionary tale of caving, even by the park rangers, during all cave tours at the park. I even throw in a ghost story or two of Floyd Collins’s alleged ghostly shenanigans with people since Floyd Collins has passed away and then freed from under that rock that had pinned his leg.

With injuries, Floyd Collins, and cautionary tales of caving, we will be discussing some smart safety practices or smart rules of thumb during caving (including not taking flash photography during a cave tour, outside of a special cave tour that allows flash photography in it) in a separate chapter from Floyd Collins and his tale of woe, over in that aforementioned chapter 5. Safety in caving is extremely important for everybody, and not in a small way either. There will be mention of a slight incident that Tony (the author’s husband mentioned here previously) had happen to him while he was on the Violet City Tour in 2009, and this worried the author about Tony’s safety while on the tour, among other things.

Speaking of the Violet City Tour again, somebody who had a lot of influence of setting up both this tour and most of the Historical Tour is a man by the name of Stephen Bishop. Stephen Bishop lived during the mid-1800s, and he is credited for most of the names of places that are located inside of the cave since he had explored most of the cave during his lifetime, and mostly visited parts of which are still seen on most of the Historical Tour.

Stephen Bishop was an interesting person in life, and his contribution to the knowledge of the current areas of historical interest of the bowels of Mammoth Cave will be discussed at length in a chapter all about him. Fair warning, though, now: we will also have to talk about the fact that Stephen Bishop, for a good part of his life, was a slave, but he died a free man but of tuberculosis a.k.a. the infamous white plague or possibly of some other malady. The author has seen and heard two different versions of what might have possibly ended Stephen Bishop’s life from a couple of different sources.

In relation to Stephen Bishop and tuberculosis, I will mention what they both had to do with the cave other than Stephen doing most of the exploration of what is part of what is called the Historical Tour. Mammoth Cave had a lot to do with an experiment in the early days of treatment of the white plague, and it is worth mentioning in this book since it is also part of the Violet City Tour and will be discussed in both parts of the book as well.

Mammoth Cave was involved with the War of 1812 and the creation of gunpowder to help supply the war effort of a young America with the help of one E. I. DuPont and the cave’s owners at the time. If you are thinking about paint, yes, it is the man with the name linked with paint, Mr. DuPont. It is not just paint and gunpowder that came from inside of the cave; there were mummies inside the cave or at least one indigenous person who had died inside of the cave in prehistoric times while mining out some gypsum to eat. Gypsum is also used for other more modern-day things that will be discussed, along with the War of 1812 and Mr. DuPont, all in a later chapter.

As I mentioned previously, I will be talking about things that I have observed at the national park, along with my husband, Tony, in a chapter where we talk about things that we have seen in and around the park both on cave tours and above ground. Not only will Tony and I be discussing the national park in a chapter, but also I will be discussing other people’s thoughts on the cave, such as the authors H. P. Lovecraft, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, along with some folks whom I have known for some time who have done some cave tours themselves. There will also be some other voices heard from in the chapter where Tony and I discuss our opinions on the cave itself, and it will be an earlier generation, and my parents will be telling about their thoughts and memories of being at the national park, even as a teenager (that would be my dad).

Outside the national park is one town that you have to pass through to get to the park itself: Cave City, Kentucky. In a couple of chapters about Cave City, there will be descriptions of what else there is available in the city itself (to do when you are not at the park and doing a cave tour.) There is also discussion of place to stay and restaurants located in the area in a separate chapter on Cave City.

In addition to Mammoth Cave, there are a few smaller caves nearby. In a short chapter, there is discussion of the few smaller caves nearby and what is available with them as well. These smaller caves in the area are not (to the author’s knowledge) linked to Mammoth Cave directly, or they would have certainly been absorbed by the national park by now. There is even an unusual situation with one of these caves, by the way; more on that cave and its situation in chapter 21.

There will talk of a couple of universities, planes, trains, automobiles, former Kentucky governors, taxidermized (read: "those animals are stuffed and quite real") animals, golfing, camping, fishing on lakes for free and for a nominal fee, mystery houses, tourist traps, zip lines both inside and outside of caves, horse riding, archery, gun-shooting ranges, cave bacon, state parks, dinosaurs, seasonal offerings, a possible cave that is for sale (but it is not the national park—just saying!), a Kentuckian version of Stonehenge, American Civil War sites, haunted houses (that are not to be confused with the aforementioned mystery houses), escape rooms, canoeing, hiking trails, motorcycle and biking trails, and then driving loops. For the cave bacon from the other caves, what happened to Floyd Collins’s cave after he died and some zip lines are in chapter 21. The aviation heritage park, the trains, the two Civil War sites, the Kentucky Stonehenge, an art museum, and a couple of haunted houses are in chapter 20.

In chapter 22, there are ideas for things to do above ground at the national park like weddings; bar and bat mitzvahs, family reunions, bachelor and bachelorette parties, quinceañera parties, and other family-type gatherings. I also talk about helping out the United States postal service by sending out the thank-you notes, the party invites, among other things, to keep those people entertained at the national park’s own postal office.

There are lots of things to do at the national park outside—hiking, cave tours, and camping. People can take photos with their cameras or cell phones outside the beautiful landscape in the area. Besides, if you end up having somebody in your group who cannot participate in the cave tours for one reason or another, like being too young or having some kind of physical limitation, you will need an alternate form of things to do above ground for those folks to do while you are on a cave tour inside of the cave.

There are also hotels and campgrounds in the area that are mentioned in chapter 19, as mentioned previously. In chapter 20, there is food and other things to in Cave City besides camping and the discussion of food. In chapter 21, in addition to talking about cave bacon, there is a discussion of what became of Floyd Collins’s cave that he was exploring back in the day. As for hiking and horseback riding at the national park and in the area, it is mentioned in chapter 3, by the way.

Speaking of picking tours for your group, when you read the rules in chapter 2 and look through the chapters on each of the cave tours (being chapters 9–18), there is discussion of adult beverages and the