Floyd Collins - Legacy

Legacy

Newspaper reporter William Burke "Skeets" Miller of the Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal reported on the rescue efforts from the scene. Miller also talked with and interviewed Collins in the cave, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage. Miller's reports were distributed by telegraph and were printed by newspapers around the country and abroad, and the rescue attempts were followed by regular news bulletins on the new medium of broadcast radio (the first broadcast radio station KDKA having been established in 1920). Shortly after the media arrived, the publicity drew crowds of tourists to the site, at one point numbering in the tens of thousands. Vendors set up stalls to sell food and souvenirs, creating to a circus-like atmosphere. The Sand Cave rescue attempt grew to become the third-biggest media event between the world wars. (The biggest media events of that time both involved Charles Lindbergh—the trans-Atlantic flight and his son's kidnapping—and Lindbergh actually had a minor role in the Sand Cave rescue, too, having been hired to fly photographic negatives from the scene for a newspaper.)

The attention over the rescue attempt of Collins created interest in the creation of Mammoth Cave National Park, which Sand Cave now is a part. Fear and superstition kept cavers away from Sand Cave for decades. The National Park Service has sealed the entrance with a steel grate for public safety. Expeditions into Mammoth Cave showed that portions of Mammoth actually run under Sand Cave, but no connection has ever been discovered. In the 1970s, cave explorer and author Roger Brucker and a small group entered Sand Cave to conduct research for a book about Floyd Collins. The team surveyed Sand, and discovered an opening in the tunnel collapses through which a small caver could crawl, showing that it would have been possible to feed and heat Collins after February 4, 1925. They proceeded as far as the passage where Collins was trapped; it was choked with gravel and unsafe to excavate. In April 1983, George Crothers led an archaeological investigation that documented many 1925 artifacts in the cave. These were removed for preservation.

The life and death of Floyd Collins inspired the musical Floyd Collins by Adam Guettel and Tina Landau, as well as at least one film documentary, several books, a museum, and many short songs by cavers. Ace in the Hole is a 1951 film by Billy Wilder, based on the media circus surrounding the attempted rescue of a man stuck in a cave; the film depicts a fictional incident, Collins is mentioned by name in the dialogue. Floyd Collins biography is told in the books Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins by Roger Brucker and Robert K. Murray (ISBN 0-8131-0153-0) and The Life and Death of Floyd Collins by Homer Collins as told to Jack Lehrberger and published by Cave Books. He is mentioned in two novels by Kentucky writers Robert Penn Warren and James Still: The Cave and River of Earth.

In 2006, actor Billy Bob Thornton optioned the film rights to Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins and a screenplay was adapted by Thornton's writing partner, Tom Epperson. However, Thornton's option expired, and the film rights were acquired by producer Peter R.J. Deyell in 2011.

An annual play is performed at the Green River Amphitheatre in Brownsville, Kentucky, titled The Story of Floyd Collins. The play is based on Floyd Collins himself and also depicts the Collins family interacting at the time of the rescue attempt.

Fiddlin' John Carson and Vernon Dalhart recorded "The Death of Floyd Collins" in 1925. Kentucky-based rock band Black Stone Cherry has a song entitled "The Ghost of Floyd Collins" on their 2008 album Folklore and Superstition. John Prine & Mac Wiseman released a song entitled "Death of Floyd Collins" written by Andrew Jenkins on their 2007 album Standard Songs For Average People.