Overlooked Wilderness? Mammoth Cave National Park, Exploration, and Preservation

• In Event: Mediating politics and culture through parks in North America and Scandinavia

Abstract

In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation creating three new national parks in the eastern United States: Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains, and Mammoth Cave. By 1941, when Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, became the twenty-sixth national park in the United States, its merit for preservation had been hotly contested and debated. Having been toured for over one hundred years and bearing extensive scars from thousands of visitors dating back to the late Archaic period, the subterranean wonder defied the “pristine” ideal that defined parks in the West. Concurrent with the park’s establishment and new management by the National Park Service (NPS), caving changed from a recreational hobby into a more systematic, scientific pursuit, leading to the formation of the National Speleological Society (NSS). These two developments, combined with midcentury prosperity that spurred dramatic increased tourism to national parks, created a perfect storm that pitted different ideas of environmental conservation and preservation, challenged the definitions of wilderness, and pushed the limits of underground knowledge. This paper seeks to shine a light into the void that environmental historians have left beneath the surface.

Author

• Alyssa Warrick, Mississippi State University