In the winter of 1925, when Floyd Collins was trapped by a rock fall for two weeks in a tiny passageway in Sand Cave, he was already very well known locally and also nationally among spelunkers a one of the most knowledgeable and courageous cave explorers. During his ordeal and the rescue efforts that all failed, leading to his death, he became a virtually universal celebrity fostering dozens of spur-of-the-moment, yet often lasting, businesses to meeting the public’s voracious curiosity. The pictures in this book well illustrate the tragedy and its life as a public attraction, and the captions flow together to provide a clear run-down of what happened when. Sand Cave is now preserved inside Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, but this book will show you how this drama captured national attention for decades.
Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2017. 127 pages, profusely illustrated with numerous photos. Trade paperback