Tom's National Park Adventure

Mammoth Cave National Park is located 85 miles from either Louisville, KY or Nashville, TN.

The cave system is the largest mapped cave system in the world. So far they have mapped over 400 miles of the system and are still mapping more.

Evidence found in the cave indicates that Pre Historic Indigenous people were using the cave 4500 to 5000 years ago. The cave was rediscovered in the late 1700’s by Euro-Americans who began exploring and settling the area. Around 1811 saltpeter was mined as a key ingredient in the making of black powder. Production was ramped up for the duration of the 1812 war. During this time period the first commercial tours of Mammoth Cave began. Eventually cave tours caused tourists to come to the area. A stage coach dedicated to bringing tourist to the cave was once robbed by Jessy James and his gang! A dedicated railroad was built to bring tourists to the cave too.

Since there was money to be made from tourism, many different people began to open up other “show” caves into the area. All the different caves were competing for the tourist dollar. Since they were all privately owned the competition was fierce. This time period is often referred to as the Cave Wars.

The interesting thing is that these different caves are all part of the same system!

There were over 600 families who lived in this area. Many of them made their living from the caves located on their land. One of these families had only a minor cave so one family member went out exploring to find a better cave. During his exploration in 1925 Floyd Collin’s was pinned by a large bolder inside the Sand Cave. The rescue attempt trying to free him lasted for 17 days and was covered by local and national news outlets. Unfortunately the rescue attempt failed. His death brought about so much attention to the area that congress authorized the creation of a new National Park. The Park wasn’t created and opened until 1941. Since the area was predominantly privately owned the government had to purchase the ground. Not all the owners were interested in selling, so they had to use imminent domain laws to obtain the land. The park currently has about 54,000 acres.

Depending on when you come, the park offers up to 18 different cave tours. There are tours of different lengths and difficulty. The tour I took today is the longest and most difficult. The Grand Avenue Tour lasts around four hours and covers about four miles. That sounds like a long tour, however it only covered less than 1% of the cave system!

There was so much more to see while I was on the tour. The ranger who led the tour was very knowledgeable!

Tomorrow i plan to explore much of the above ground experience of the park.