The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1911-07-13
ONE OF THF
GRFAT WONDERS
SOUTHERN LUXURY RUINS
Old Hotel With Immense Bar
Still Stands a Relic of Old
Stage Coach Times.

Time was when the Mammoth Cave
of Kentucky, was one of the wonders
of the world. The cave is there yet,
but only pinnic parties go there now,
or possibly an occasional person wand
ers thither because his father and
mother made their wedding journey
this way and then talked of it for the
rest of their lives.
Records can be seen at the Nam
moth Cave hotel showing the exact
number of persons who have visited
this cave since the hotel waa opened
in 1887.
| 1t is worth while to note that in the
year 1874 an average of ninety-three
persons day were shown the wonders
of the Mammoth Cave, while in 1910
the average, not counting local picnic
parties, was lessIthan dozen day.
In 1874 the population of the United
States was less than twenty millions
and there was not a railroad in the
state of Kentucky. And yet people
came here from all the New England
and middle states by the hundred.
Edward Everett guided party of
New England school teachers here in
the summer of lS47. They came by
way Pittsburg, taking steamer thence
to Owensboro, KY, and then by stage
q two days ride-eighty miles~-to the
cave.
The hotel is here now practically as
it was then, and one can easily be-
lieve that no new furniture has been
added.
From 1910 to 1870 scarcely a person
of note then living but visited the
cave. 1t was sort of finishing touch
to ones education, and people who
could not talk intelligently of Niagara
Falls and the Mammoth Gave had no
standing in polite society.
Everett gave lectures at Harvard on
the Mammoth Gave. Webster gave q
great speech at the cave in 1854, and
Emerson in his essays several times
refers to his visit here, telling of the
fish that have no eyes TO see.
Barhum brought Jenny Lind here
and she sat in stalactite chair that is
now proudly pointed out by the guide.
From the year 1850 to the breaking
out of the war in 1861 there were held
over three hundred conventions of
learned societies, college affairs and
gatherings of prominent people from
all over the world.
President Pierce and four members
of his cabinet visited Mammoth Cave,
and for week it was the capital of
the United States. But has Teddy
ever been there? Not exactly, nor has
President Taft or any of his cabinet,
and doubt me much if Col. Bryan
ever heard OF the place.
The advertising man is dead.
The Mammoth Cave is no fake. No
body who ever sees it is disappointed,
no matter how blase his temperament
or curled his heart.
If nothing more than this rotunda
we're shown it would still be one of the
wonders Of creation.
But beyond the rotunda you follow
mile after mile through this never end
ing night. Seven miles are walked
we had, been gone three hours. Not
once did hear any one speak of being
tired.
There are longer routes and many of
them. Stay week and hire your
guide by the day If you are q genuine
descendant of the cave men. One man
l met at the Mammoth Cave hotel had
been there three weeks, had hired a
guide by the day and traversed 15O
miles of tortuous passages.
Reaching Mammoth cave by a nine
mile railroad that owns one locomo-
tive, one is let down near the hotel, |
which, with its barns and rambling
outbuildings, is all there is of the ter
minus.
This great, wide-stretching hotel,
with its six hundred feet of piazza, is
worth the trip alone. 1t tells Of stage
coach times, and days when slaves
were sold at auction from its broad pi-
azzas, and two hundred horses were in
the stable
1t is southern luxury In ruins.