Sir Elton John, blind fish, the original Twinkie, President Ronald Reagan's Secret Service detail, and mummies don't usually come up in the same conversation—unless you're at Mammoth Cave National Park! Home to the earth's longest known cave system, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the oldest tourist attractions in North America. Although this remarkable place has been immortalized in works ranging from Herman Melville's Moby Dick to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Beast in the Cave," the realities of life at Mammoth Cave can be stranger than fiction. In this charming book, Colleen O'Connor Olson takes readers on a tour through a labyrinth of topics. She discusses scientific subjects such as the fossils of prehistoric animals and the secret lives of subterranean critters, and she provides essential information on dating in the cave (the age of rocks and artifacts, not courtship). Olson also explores Mammoth Cave's rich history, covering its use as the world's first tuberculosis sanatorium as well as its operation as a saltpeter mine during the War of 1812, and shares the inspirational story of the park's first female ranger. Throughout, Olson offers up humorous accounts of celebrity visits and astounding adventures and even includes a chapter dedicated to jokes told in the cave over the years. Whether you're visiting the national park, thinking about visiting, or just curious about a place recognized as one of the world's greatest natural wonders, don't miss this delightful guide to the wild and wonderful subterranean world of Mammoth Cave.

As you enter the world's longest cave you cannot help but wonder about scary stories. Two centuries of tourists and explorers--some of whom got lost, saw or heard the unexplainable, or just wanted to tell a good tale--cannot leave a cave without stories. Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave is a collection of nineteenth and twentieth century fiction, historical and more recent first hand accounts of unusual experiences by National Park Service employees, cave explorers, and scientists.

“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.

This book is for children ages 9 and up, and it also appeals to adults as did the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Harry Potter stories. The kids from the previous book, The Cave of Healing, arrive at Mammoth Cave and are soon confronted with big problems. Because these kids can magically reduce their size to even an inch tall, they become the heroes of the Cave's search and rescue operations. The author was assisted by Mammoth cave explorers and the Cave staff in getting the geology, geography, speleology, and hydrology of the Cave right, as well as authentic actions of cave guides and rescue teams. Roger Brucker, one of the most famous cave explorers in the world, said, "This is a gripping tale, full of fun and adventure." Midwest Book Review calls it "An engrossing story to delight readers of all ages."

"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.

The dramatic story of several generations of cavers whose exciting and dangerous explorations in Kentucky's limestone labyrinths culminated in the big connection between the Flint Ridge Cave System and Mammoth Cave, forming the longest cave in the world.

The author's family has, over the years, fallen in love with Mammoth Cave National Park, which is located near Cave City, Kentucky. The love of this wonderful and mysterious place started back in the 1960s with the author's father, J. David Miller, who was there as a teen, trapping deer with the United States government, and spread to the author's mother, Judy, then on to the author and her husband, Tony, in between the years of 1980 and 2004. The author wishes to share with her readers her family's love of an amazing place in southwestern Kentucky.