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When Floyd Collins entered Sand Cave
in 1925, little did he realize that he would
soon become a national folk hero. His entrapment
and the subsequent efforts to free him attracted
national attention and became one of the most
sensational news events of the 20th Century.
Floyd Collins was a farmer in the Kentucky hills
and an avid cave explorer who, in the winter of
1925, entered a cave that he hoped to turn into
a tourist-driven goldmine, and instead became
hopelessly trapped. |
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Within days,
his plight had triggered a gaudy media circus – America’s
first sensational, true-life soap opera played out on the
airwaves. An account says, “Every L&N train, then the
principal mode of transportation, brought swarms of
newspaper reporters from the east to the west
coast…Destination-Cave City and Sand Cave, with Press
Headquarters in the Hotel Dixie, where feverish newsmen
ground out dramatic stories of the fruitless efforts to free
poor Floyd in his lonely trap in the depths of Sand Cave.”
Rescuers
tried everything – digging and hacking at the passageway,
sinking a new shaft, and feeding Floyd to keep up his
energy. A wealthy Chicago woman sent her surgeon to Cave
City by plane to try to amputate Collins’ foot and thus free
him, but to no avail. Reporter Skeets Miller squeezed his
way between rock and sand debris to interview Floyd and
chronicle the drama. Eventually, a passage just above Floyd
collapsed, cutting him off entirely from all human contact;
and poor Floyd died alone, buried alive. As the historical
marker matter-of-factly states at the entrance to Sand Cave,
his plight “Aroused the sympathy of a nation.”
The Cave
City Chamber of Commerce and the City of Cave City recently
produced and filmed a docudrama entitled “The Floyd Collins
Story”. Many local residents and descendants of Floyd
Collins were featured in the film, which premiered at the
Cave City Convention Center on Saturday, July 24, 1999.
For more
information about Floyd Collins, check out the following
links:
Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins
America’s Greatest Doomed Cave Explorer
The Floyd Collins Museum
Floyd Collins: Trapped in Sand Cave |
