Charles A. Lindbergh, the American aviator, visited the Mammoth Cave area in the summer of 1921. Even though it has been written in books and newspapers that Lindbergh also was present during the 1925 Floyd Collins entrapment, there are no photos or documentation to support this claim.
Lindbergh was an unknown at the time of his 1921 visit to the cave region, as his transatlantic flight from New York to Paris was not made until 1927. Lindbergh’s 1921 trip would have gone unnoticed if it were not for handwritten notations that he kept of his trip, photographs that he took, and a book he wrote later in life.
In June 1921, Lindbergh and two friends from a Wisconsin school, identified only as O’Connor and Drewry, traveled to Camp (Fort) Knox, Kentucky, where they spent the first six weeks of their summer vacation attending an ROTC training camp. The men were free on Sundays to roam the Kentucky countryside and did so with their two modes of transportation—a Ford speedster car and Lindbergh’s Excelsior motorcycle.
Library of Congress
Lindbergh and his two companions came to the Mammoth Cave area one Sunday hoping to explore some caves. They took the traditional tours available at Mammoth Cave at the time but that was not enough for them as they wanted to explore more. As they were resting, Homer Collins, Floyd Collins’ brother, approached them and asked if they would be interested in seeing Crystal Cave, a cave discovered by Floyd Collins in 1917. Lindbergh wrote about his Mammoth Cave/Crystal Cave experience in his 1953 book, The Spirit of St. Louis:
I am in Kentucky, with two other Field Artillery cadets. This is Sunday. We’re free of Camp Knox’s three-guns and classes. O’Connor and Drewry, in their streamlined “Bug,” and I on my motorcycle, are out to judge the virtues of the state. At this spot, we’ll stop to rest and eat a sandwich.
“You fellows been to Mammoth Cave?”
It’s a local boy who comes up to ask us—grinning—high school age.
“Yes, we just came from there,” O’Connor answers. “We’d spent hours walking through the damp, cool passages.”
“Quite a place isn’t it?” the boy goes on.
“Sure is.”
“This country’s full of caves,” he tells us. “Ya know, we think we got a better one. Like to take a look at it? Isn’t far.”
“Well … sure, let’s go.”
We’ve been hunting for caves ourselves, climbing along the banks of a river, and crawling under rocky ledges where an opening might be. Here is a chance to do some exploring with the help of an expert and inexpensive guide.
“My name is Homer Collins,” the boy volunteers as we follow him. “We call ours ‘Crystal Cave.’ It’s a lot prettier and maybe it’s bigger than Mammoth. Some of the passages go further than we been.”
According a 1927 newspaper article, Lindbergh’s companion, O’Connor, mentions that Floyd Collins also was with the group through Crystal Cave.
At Camp Knox, the three spent their holidays roaming the Kentucky cave country, and while there, they made the acquaintance of Floyd Collins, who later drew nationwide attention when he lost his life in Sand Cave. Collins escorted them through a big cave and entertained them at his home one Sunday, taking them to a little mountain church in the evening.
Lindbergh left Camp Knox on July 21 and spent the second six weeks of his vacation traveling to Florida before he headed back to school in Wisconsin in September.
Lindbergh’s interest in flying began in February 1922, as he made the decision to leave engineering school in Wisconsin to become a flying student at Nebraska Standard Aircraft Corporation in Lincoln, Nebraska. By March 1924, he enlisted as a United States Army Flying cadet in Texas, and on March 14, 1925 (about three weeks after the Collins’ entrapment), he graduated first in his class from the U.S. Air Service Flying School, Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas.
It has been written in books and newspapers that Lindbergh was present at Floyd Collins’ 1925 entrapment, delivering news reports and photo negatives by air. The earliest mention of Lindbergh at Sand Cave comes from a Courier-Journal article from Feb. 14, 1954, written by staff writer Joe Creason.
The name of Ellis Jones of Cave City, is often mentioned in newspapers about Lindbergh’s appearance at Sand Cave in 1925. Jones—being a pilot, mechanic and Lindbergh admirer himself—mentioned Lindbergh flying “in from Chicago with a photographer from the Chicago Tribune to get pictures of Floyd Collins’ entrapment in Sand Cave” in a Courier-Journal article from Dec. 17, 1979, by staff writer Byron Crawford.
An Aviation Magazine article from March 23, 1925, mentions the Floyd Collins tragedy and the airplanes and pilots who provided services to carry pictures, etc., but there is no mention of Lindbergh as being one of these pilots. Jones’ name is mentioned in the article as providing services for the airplanes at a new airport landing field, “Floyd Collins Field.”
On Aug. 6, 1927, after Lindbergh’s historic flight across the Atlantic Ocean, he went on a three-month, nationwide tour. Flying the Spirit of St. Louis, he touched down in 48 states and visited 92 cities, including a stop at Lunken Field Airport in Cincinnati. From Cincinnati, Lindbergh flew to Louisville on Aug. 8, and, prior to Indianapolis on Aug. 9, he flew over Camp (Fort) Knox. This is as close as Lindbergh ever came to Mammoth Cave again after he became famous.
After Lindbergh’s most publicized event at Lunken Field in August 1927, he occasionally used Lunken Field as a routine stop for refueling his plane, including a stop in 1928. Jones, who had been a mechanic at Lunken Field since 1927, was present the day Lindbergh touched down. A photo was taken on March 28, 1928, of Jones filling the radiator of Lindbergh’s Curtiss Robin monoplane, with Lindbergh in the picture. This may have been the only time Ellis Jones met Lindbergh.
It is interesting to point out that books and newspaper articles on Floyd Collins state that Lindbergh was at Sand Cave at the time of Collins’ entrapment, but books on Lindbergh never mention the name of Floyd Collins or Sand Cave. Lindbergh talks in detail about his 1921 trip to Mammoth Cave in his 1953 book but does not acknowledge anything about the 1925 Collins tragedy. If Lindbergh was present at that historical event, it most certainly would have been well documented in books on Lindbergh.
To conclude, unless some documentation or a photo is discovered, Charles A. Lindbergh was not at Sand Cave in 1925.
Bob Thompson
Mason, Ohio