The Great Explorer of Mammoth Cave

The Great Explorer of Mammoth Cave
Author: Shawn Pryor
Publisher: Capstone
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2024
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1669061949

Mammoth Cave, a National Park in Brownsville, Kentucky, is the world's largest cavern with more than 400 miles of cavern space. The first to explore the cave was an enslaved Black man, Stephen Bishop. With bravery and a curious mind, Bishop became a popular tour guide and mapped out the extensive caverns, all while remaining enslaved. Learn about this respected explorer's work in this inspiring graphic novel.

Journey to the Bottomless Pit

Journey to the Bottomless Pit
Author: Elizabeth Mitchell
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1504057694

“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.

Lift Your Light a Little Higher

Lift Your Light a Little Higher
Author: Heather Henson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 148142095X

The story of Stephen Bishop, a slave and early explorer and guide at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.

Beyond Mammoth Cave

Beyond Mammoth Cave
Author: James D. Borden
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2000-11-20
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0809390388

In Beyond Mammoth Cave: A Tale of Obsession in the World’s Longest Cave, James D. Borden and Roger W. Brucker provide gripping first-person accounts of the discoveries, including Roppel Cave, that made Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave three times longer than any other cave in the world. Borden, a relative newcomer, and Brucker, a veteran explorer, bring a personal and sometimes conflicting view of their roles as adversaries in a race that lasted from 1972 through 1983 to find “big cave.” They describe hazardous adventures, precarious climbs, and close calls from falling rocks. The perils are many and the trek arduous as they squirm through muddy tubes, wade in neck-deep cold water, and crawl over sharp rocks and gritty sand. Theirs is a tale of agonizing endurance spiced by spectacular discoveries. But the cave was not the sole obstacle. The explorations were complicated by political intrigue and the rivalry between the Kentucky-based Cave Research Foundation and the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition, each seeking to make discoveries and hide secrets. Extreme stress, of course, evoked extreme behavior, ranging from selfishness to sacrifice, from outrageous humor to the deadly serious response. Beyond Mammoth Cave includes maps by Patricia Kambesis that show the progression of cave discoveries in relation to the topography. Original line drawings by well-known illustrator Linda Heslop capture the dark mystery of the exploration. The book features five black and white photographs as a color gallery of photographs. A sequel to The Longest Cave by Brucker and Richard A. Watson, this book is a comprehensive update of the speleological investigations in the Mammoth Cave region. Brucker’s involvement provides continuity to the investigation.

Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave

Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave
Author: Colleen O'Connor Olson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2002
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780939748549

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.

The Longest Cave

The Longest Cave
Author: Roger W. Brucker
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 1987-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780809313228

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 Kentucky Cave Wars

The Kentucky Cave Wars
Author: David Kem
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2014-06-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781312175846

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.

Blind Descent

Blind Descent
Author: James M. Tabor
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011-02-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0812979494

“Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.”—Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man’s timeless urge to discover—and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance. “Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.”—Kirkus Reviews Includes a 16-pg black and white insert

Trapped!

Trapped!
Author: Robert K. Murray
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2013-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813143950

"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.

Underground

Underground
Author: Jean Ferris
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2007-10-16
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1466803509

In 1839, visitors from miles around come to Kentucky to tour Mammoth Cave. But sixteen-year-old Charlotte, the maid at Mammoth Cave Hotel, doesn't understand its appeal. As a slave, she is already trapped, and she doesn't see the point in risking being trapped underground as well. Still, she's curious when Stephen Bishop, another slave who is the cave's expert guide and chief explorer, makes some big discoveries underground, and she's interested in Stephen himself, with his quick mind and kind ways. Then Charlotte makes a discovery of her own: runaway slaves sometimes come to the hotel seeking refuge. As she helps them, she wonders if she should run away. Stephen, on the other hand, feels that he belongs with the cave and that he is free enough when he is underground. When an opportunity presents itself, Charlotte must decide whether she should stay with Stephen or risk everything for her own chance at freedom. In this compelling novel, two young people explore what sorts of freedom they can find, even as slaves.