Floyd Collins had explored the caves on his family’s Kentucky farm since he was a child. In 1925, while exploring a nearby cave, Collins became wedged in a tight passage and could not escape. He was trapped there for 18 days while the unsuccessful rescue attempts turned into a circus that drew national publicity. Collins’ life and death drew attention to Kentucky’s cave system, leading to the desire to protect it and to the establishment of the Mammoth Cave National Park.

“Trapped in the Earth: The Floyd Collins Tragedy and the Making of Mammoth Cave National Park” will be the topic of the next Phi Alpha Theta Speaker Series with environmental history and cave specialist Alyssa Warrick speaking at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 21, via Zoom.

Admission is free and open to the public. Contact Associate Professor of History Whitney Snow at whitney.snow@msutexas.edu or 940-397-8917 for more information or the Zoom link.

Phi Alpha Theta is an honor society for undergraduate and graduate students and history professors, with more than 400,000 members nationwide.

This event is sponsored by the Department of History and the Prothro-Yeager College of Humanities and Social Sciences.