Editing Mammoth Cave National Park (section)

===19th century===
[[File:R.E.Call (1897) Map of the Mammoth Cave.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Map of Mammoth Cave (1897)]]
In partnership with Valentine Simon, various other individuals would own the land through the [[War of 1812]], when Mammoth Cave's saltpeter reserves became significant due to the [[Embargo Act of 1807|Jefferson Embargo Act of 1807]] which prohibited all foreign trade. The blockade starved the American military of saltpeter and therefore [[gunpowder]]. As a result, the domestic price of saltpeter rose and production based on nitrates extracted from caves such as Mammoth Cave became more lucrative.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}}

In July 1812, the cave was purchased from Simon and other owners by Charles Wilkins and an investor from Philadelphia named Hyman Gratz. Soon the cave was being mined for [[calcium nitrate]] on an industrial scale, utilizing a labor force of 70 slaves to build and operate the soil leaching apparatus, as well as to haul the raw soil from deep in the cave to the central processing site.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/maca/learn/historyculture/history4.htm|title=...And Pass The Ammunition - Mammoth Cave National Park (U.S. National Park Service)|website=www.nps.gov|language=en|access-date=2017-10-29|archive-date=2017-11-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107024639/https://www.nps.gov/maca/learn/historyculture/history4.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

A half-interest in the cave changed hands for $10,000 (equivalent to over $150,000 in 2020). After the war when prices fell, the workings were abandoned and it became a minor tourist attraction centering on a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] [[mummy]] discovered nearby.

When Wilkins died his estate's executors sold his interest in the cave to Gratz. In the spring of 1838, the cave was sold by the Gratz brothers to Franklin Gorin, who intended to operate Mammoth Cave purely as a tourist attraction, the bottom long having since fallen out of the saltpeter market. Gorin was a slave owner, and used his slaves as tour guides. [[Stephen Bishop (cave explorer)|Stephen Bishop]] was one of these slaves and would make a number of important contributions to human knowledge of the cave, becoming one of Mammoth Cave's most celebrated historical figures.<ref>{{Citation |last=Sides |first=Stanley D. |title=History of Exploration at Mammoth Cave |date=2017 |work=Mammoth Cave |series=Cave and Karst Systems of the World |pages=63–76 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53718-4_4 |access-date=2024-04-08 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-53718-4_4 |isbn=978-3-319-53717-7}}</ref>

Stephen Bishop was an [[African-American]] [[History of slavery in the United States|slave]] and a guide to the cave during the 1840s and 1850s, was one of the first people to make extensive [[map]]s of the cave, and named many of the cave's features.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}}

Stephen Bishop was introduced to Mammoth Cave in 1838 by Franklin Gorin. Gorin wrote, after Bishop's death: "I placed a guide in the cave – the celebrated and great Stephen, and he aided in making the discoveries. He was the first person who ever crossed the Bottomless Pit, and he, myself and another person whose name I have forgotten were the only persons ever at the bottom of Gorin's Dome to my knowledge."{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}}

"After Stephen crossed the Bottomless Pit, we discovered all that part of the cave now known beyond that point. Previous to those discoveries, all interest centered in what is known as the 'Old Cave' ... but now many of the points are but little known, although as Stephen was wont to say, they were 'grand, gloomy and peculiar'."<ref>Brucker and Watson 1976, pp. 272–73</ref>

[[File:HOVEY(1897) The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.jpg|thumbnail|upright|''The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky: An illustrated manual'' (1897)]]
In 1839, [[John Croghan]] of [[Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville]] bought the Mammoth Cave Estate, including Bishop and its other slaves from their previous owner, Franklin Gorin. Croghan briefly ran an ill-fated [[History of tuberculosis#Sanatorium movement|tuberculosis hospital]] in the cave in 1842–43, the vapors of which he believed would cure his patients. A widespread epidemic of the period, tuberculosis would ultimately claim the life of Dr. Croghan in 1849.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}}

In 1866, the first photos from within the Mammoth Cave were taken by Charles Waldack, a photographer from Cincinnati, Ohio, using a very dangerous method of flash photography called magnesium flash photography.<ref>{{cite web|date=2018-08-02|title=150 Years Ago, A Cincinnati Photographer Brought Mammoth Cave Into Focus|url=https://www.wvxu.org/history/2018-08-02/150-years-ago-a-cincinnati-photographer-brought-mammoth-cave-into-focus|access-date=2021-12-03|website=WVXU|language=en|archive-date=2021-12-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211203153803/https://www.wvxu.org/history/2018-08-02/150-years-ago-a-cincinnati-photographer-brought-mammoth-cave-into-focus|url-status=live}}</ref>

Throughout the 19th century, the fame of Mammoth Cave would grow so that the cave became an international sensation. At the same time, the cave attracted the attention of 19th century writers such as [[Robert Montgomery Bird]], the Rev. Robert Davidson, the Rev. Horace Martin, Alexander Clark Bullitt, [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]] (who visited in June 1852), [[Bayard Taylor]] (in May 1855), William Stump Forwood (in spring 1867), the naturalist [[John Muir]] (early September 1867), the Rev. Horace Carter Hovey, and others.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://kentuckyexplorer.com/nonmembers/00-05030.html |title=Thompson, Bob: Early Writers Flocked To Mammoth Cave (2000) |access-date=2006-02-11 |archive-date=2016-03-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160314082157/https://kentuckyexplorer.com/nonmembers/00-05030.html |url-status=usurped }}</ref> As a result of the growing renown of Mammoth Cave, the cave boasted famous visitors such as actor [[Edwin Booth]] (his brother, [[John Wilkes Booth]], [[Abraham Lincoln assassination|assassinated]] [[Abraham Lincoln]] in 1865), singer [[Jenny Lind]] (who visited the cave on April&nbsp;5, 1851), and violinist [[Ole Bull]] who together gave a concert in one of the caves. Two chambers in the caves have since been known as "Booth's Amphitheatre" and "Ole Bull's Concert Hall".