The First Media Circus: The Rescue Mission That Built Mammoth Cave National Park (Sleep Story)

Sleepless History: Sleep Documentaries · Jul 11, 2026 · 1h 37m · transcript

Tonight's true history sleep story tells the strange, almost unbelievable tale of Floyd Collins, a quiet, gifted cave explorer who became trapped 55ft underground in a narrow crack called Sand Cave. 17 days followed, days that stopped an entire nation in its tracks. What began as a local rescue spiraled into America's first true media circus: tens of thousands of spectators, carnival barkers selling "Floyd Collins burgers," a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter named Skeets Miller who folded his small body into an eight-inch chute to reach him, and eventually, soldiers with rifles trying…