The Kentucky Cave Wars

The Kentucky Cave Wars PDF Author: David Kem
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 9781312175846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Eighty-two square miles of rolling hills and valleys in south-central Kentucky make up Mammoth Cave National Park, one of four National Park units in the Commonwealth. Our 26th National Park is home to an enormous labyrinth of underground passages. In fact, Mammoth Cave today is understood to be the world's longest known cave system. Over 400 miles of passages have already been discovered, yet Mammoth Cave is not the only cavern in southern Kentucky. More than 300 other cave systems are known to exist within park boundaries, with many more beyond the reach of the national park. The discovery and exploitation of many of these created opportunity and prosperity for many who would seek to compete with the world famous Mammoth Cave. Roughly one hundred years of competition between enterprising cave managers, guides, locals, outsiders, explorers, and those loyal to one cave or another defined an era known as the Kentucky Cave Wars.

The Kentucky Cave Wars

The Kentucky Cave Wars PDF Author: David Kem
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 9781312175846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Eighty-two square miles of rolling hills and valleys in south-central Kentucky make up Mammoth Cave National Park, one of four National Park units in the Commonwealth. Our 26th National Park is home to an enormous labyrinth of underground passages. In fact, Mammoth Cave today is understood to be the world's longest known cave system. Over 400 miles of passages have already been discovered, yet Mammoth Cave is not the only cavern in southern Kentucky. More than 300 other cave systems are known to exist within park boundaries, with many more beyond the reach of the national park. The discovery and exploitation of many of these created opportunity and prosperity for many who would seek to compete with the world famous Mammoth Cave. Roughly one hundred years of competition between enterprising cave managers, guides, locals, outsiders, explorers, and those loyal to one cave or another defined an era known as the Kentucky Cave Wars.

Hovey's Hand-book of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky

Hovey's Hand-book of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky PDF Author: Horace Carter Hovey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mammoth Cave (Ky.)
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
"More than four hundred books, pamphlets, scientific reports and magazine articles have been published by different writers besides innumerable newspaper contributions about Kentucky's great cavern... Yet there is a demand, and there seems to be room, for such a practical, condensed, and up-to-date hand-book as is now offered... Its design is to aid the average visitor as he follows the four regulation routes by which the cave is ordinarily exhibited"--Preface.

Trapped!

Trapped! PDF Author: Robert K. Murray
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813143950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
"When Floyd Collins became trapped in a cave in southern Kentucky in early 1925, the sensationalism and hysteria of the rescue attempt generated America's first true media spectacle, making Collins's story one of the seminal events of the century. The crowds that gathered outside Sand Cave turned the rescue site into a carnival. Collins's situation was front-page news throughout the country, hourly bulletins interrupted radio programs, and Congress recessed to hear the latest word. Trapped! is both a tense adventure and a brilliant historical recreation of the past. This new edition includes a new epilogue revealing information about the Floyed Collins story that has come to light since the book was first published.

Journey to the Bottomless Pit

Journey to the Bottomless Pit PDF Author: Elizabeth Mitchell
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504057694
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
“A fascinating story.” —LeVar Burton The thrilling adventures of a slave who became known worldwide for his explorations of Mammoth Cave. If you toured Mammoth Cave in Kentucky in the year 1838, you would have been led by candlelight through dark, winding tunnels to the edge of a terrifying bottomless pit. Your guide would have been seventeen-year-old Stephen Bishop, an African American slave who became known around the world for his knowledge of Mammoth Cave. Bishop needed bravery, intelligence, and curiosity to explore the vast cavern. Using only a lantern, rope, and other basic caving equipment, he found a way to cross the bottomless pit and discover many more miles of incredible grottoes and tunnels. For the rest of his life he guided visitors through the cave, showing them how to stoop, bend, and crawl through passageways that were sometimes far from the traditional tour route. Based on the narratives of those who toured the cave with him, Journey to the Bottomless Pit is the first book for young readers ever written about Stephen Bishop. New to this edition: A free teacher’s guide to this book, as well as an interview with current-day Mammoth Cave guide Jerry Bransford, great-great-grandson of Stephen Bishop’s fellow guide, Mat Bransford.

A Road Running Southward

A Road Running Southward PDF Author: Dan Chapman
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831956
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
"Engaging hybrid - part lyrical travelogue, part investigative journalism and part jeremiad, all shot through with droll humor." --The Atlanta Journal Constitution In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Kentucky southward to Florida. One hundred and fifty years later, on a similar whim, veteran Atlanta reporter Dan Chapman, distressed by sprawl-driven environmental ills in a region he loves, recreated Muir’s journey to see for himself how nature has fared since Muir’s time. Channeling Muir, he uses humor, keen observation, and a deep love of place to celebrate the South’s natural riches. But he laments that a treasured way of life for generations of Southerners is endangered as long-simmering struggles intensify over misused and dwindling resources. Chapman seeks to discover how Southerners might balance surging population growth with protecting the natural beauty Muir found so special. Each chapter touches upon a local ecological problem—at-risk species in Mammoth Cave, coal ash in Kingston, Tennessee, climate change in the Nantahala National Forest, water wars in Georgia, aquifer depletion in Florida—that resonates across the South. Chapman delves into the region’s natural history, moving between John Muir’s vivid descriptions of a lush botanical paradise and the myriad environmental problems facing the South today. Along the way he talks to locals with deep ties to the land—scientists, hunters, politicians, and even a Muir impersonator—who describe the changes they’ve witnessed and what it will take to accommodate a fast-growing population without destroying the natural beauty and a cherished connection to nature. A Road Running Southward is part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur, and paints a picture of a South under siege. It is a passionate appeal, a call to action to save one of the loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world by understanding what we have to lose if we do nothing.

A Concise History of Kentucky

A Concise History of Kentucky PDF Author: James Klotter
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813129257
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Kentucky is most commonly associated with horses, tobacco fields, bourbon, and coal mines. There is much more to the state, though, than stories of feuding families and Colonel Sanders’ famous fried chicken. Kentucky has a rich and often compelling history, and James C. Klotter and Freda C. Klotter introduce readers to an exciting story that spans 12,000 years, looking at the lives of Kentuckians from Native Americans to astronauts. The Klotters examine all aspects of the state’s history—its geography, government, social life, cultural achievements, education, and economy. A Concise History of Kentucky recounts the events of the deadly frontier wars of the state’s early history, the divisive Civil War, and the shocking assassination of a governor in 1900. The book tells of Kentucky’s leaders from Daniel Boone and Henry Clay to Abraham Lincoln, Mary Breckinridge, and Muhammad Ali. The authors also highlight the lives of Kentuckians, both famous and ordinary, to give a voice to history. The Klotters explore Kentuckians’ accomplishments in government, medicine, politics, and the arts. They describe the writing and music that flowered across the state, and they profile the individuals who worked to secure equal rights for women and African Americans. The book explains what it was like to work in the coal mines and explains the daily routine on a nineteenth-century farm. The authors bring Kentucky’s story to the twenty-first century and talk about the state’s modern economy, where auto manufacturing jobs are replacing traditional agricultural work. A collaboration of the state historian and an experienced educator, A Concise History of Kentucky is the best single resource for Kentuckians new and old who want to learn more about the past, present, and future of the Bluegrass State.

Kentucky Maverick

Kentucky Maverick PDF Author: Carlton Jackson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813161061
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
“An absorbing story about how the Lincoln veteran George Watt managed to escape from Nazi-occupied Belgium.”—San Francisco Review of Books November 1943: American flyer George Watt parachutes out of his burning warplane and lands in rural Nazi-occupied Belgium. Escape from Hitler’s Europe is the incredible story of his getaway—how brave villagers spirited him to Brussels to connect with the Comet Line, a rescue arm of the Belgian resistance. This was a gravely dangerous mission, especially for a Jewish soldier who had fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Watt recounts dodging the Gestapo, entering Paris via the underground, and finally, crossing the treacherous Pyrenees into Spain. In 1985, he returned to Belgium and discovered an astonishing postscript to his wartime experiences. “A story of what is best in human beings triumphing over what is worst.”—John Sayles, author of Yellow Earth “One of those rare little narratives that engage the reader from the first page to the last . . . It is about the human spirit and those willing to risk their lives for a stranger.”—Library Journal "A hell of an adventure story."―Ring Lardner, Jr., author of The Ecstasy of Owen Muir “This is one of my favorite books about World War II, and the first I have read that is about the Comet Line and the people who helped with running it.”—Armchair Interviews “This is an interesting and exciting account that provides a first-person examination of the plight of an individual airman, and insights into the scope, risks, and techniques of the Belgian and French underground movements.”—Col. Stetson M. Siler, USAF (Ret.)

The Longest Cave

The Longest Cave PDF Author: Roger W. Brucker
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 080939099X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In 1925 the geological connection between Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave was proved when dye placed in a Flint Ridge spring showed up in Echo River at Mammoth Cave. That tantalizing swirl of dye confirmed speculations that wereto tempt more than 650cavers over half a century with the thrill of being the first to make human passage of the cave connection. Roger Brucker and Richard Watson tell not only of their own twenty-year effort to complete the link but the stories of many others who worked their way through mud-choked crawlways less than a foot high only to find impenetrable blockages. Floyd Collins died a grisly death in nearby Sand Cave in1925, after being trapped there for 15 days. The wide press coverage of the rescue efforts stirred the imagination of the public and his body was on macabre display in a glass-topped coffin in Crystal Cave into the 1940s. Agents of a rival cave owner once even stole his corpse, which was recovered and still is in a coffin in the cave. Modern cavers still have a word with Floyd as they start their downward treks. Brucker and Watson joined the parade of cavers who propelled themselves by wiggling kneecaps, elbows, and toes through quarter-mile long crawlways, clinging by fingertips and boot toes across mud-slick walls, over bottomless pits, into gurgling streams beneath stone ceilings that descend to water level, down crumbling crevices and up mountainous rockfalls, into wondrous domed halls, and straight ahead into a blackness intensified rather than dispelled by the carbide lamps on their helmets. Over two decades they explored the passages with others who sought the final connection as vigorously as themselves. Pat Crowther, a young mother of two, joined them and because of her thinness became the member of the crew to go first into places no human had ever gone before. In that role, in July 1972, she wiggled her way through the Tight Spot and found the route that would link the Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave systems into one cave extending 144.4 miles through the Kentucky limestone. In a new afterword to this edition the authors summarize the subsequent explorations that have more than doubled the established length of the cave system. Based upon geological evidence, the authors predict that new discoveries will add another 200 miles to the length of the world’s longest cave, making it over 500 miles long.

The Bone Wars

The Bone Wars PDF Author: Erin S. Evan
Publisher: Inkshares
ISBN: 1942645678
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
"A remarkable combination of incredible scientific detail and convincing fabrication. History buffs and dinosaur devotees will find much to love in this science-based thriller." —Booklist Rome, A.D. 306. Emperor Constantine converts the Roman Empire to Christianity. Over the next two decades, his armies destroy pagan idols across Europe and the Middle East. England, A.D. 1830. Paleontologist Mary Anning writes to Sir Richard Owen, describing a fossil that she discovered in the cliffs of Lyme-Regis. She writes that the fossil is a large wing made of black bone. Montana, A.D. 2023. Sixteen-year-old Molly Wilder discovers a mysterious fossil while on a summer internship. The fossil has a large wing structure, horned skull, and black bones. Neither famed fossil-hunter Derek Farnsworth nor renowned paleontologist Dr. Sean Oliphant can place it in a recognized dinosaur family. For 65 million years, the Badlands of Montana have held a secret hidden in their depths...

Tomas Young's War

Tomas Young's War PDF Author: Mark Wilkerson
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608466515
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Tomas Young’s War is the tragic yet life affirming story of a paralyzed Iraq War veteran who spent his last ten years battling heroically with his injuries, while courageously speaking against America's wars. Based on hours of interviews with Young and those close to him, the book puts the reader alongside Young as he struggles with life as a paralyzed veteran, suffering frustration and humiliation as he attempts to reenter society and resume as normal an existence as possible. It shows his fight to balance his precarious health with his drive to speak out for veterans care and against the war, and the impact his catastrophic injuries had on his family and his relationships. This emotional and powerful book sheds light on many crucial but often overlooked issues such as veterans’ care, public attitudes toward the disabled, medical marijuana, and the terminally ill. Tomas Young’s War shares everything, as unflinchingly honest as Tomas himself: the depression, the pain, the love, and laughter . . . the life of this man whose world was turned upside down by an Iraqi bullet more than ten years ago. Throughout, it serves as a powerful testament to the true cost of war.