William Floyd Collins (July 20, 1887 – February 13 (Estimated), 1925) was an American cave explorer, principally in a region of Kentucky that houses hundreds of miles of interconnected caves, today a part of Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest known cave system in the world. In the early 20th century, in an era known as the Kentucky Cave Wars, spelunkers and property owners entered into bitter competition to exploit the bounty of caves for commercial profit from tourists, who paid to see the caves. In 1917 and 1918, Collins discovered and commercialized Great Crystal Cave in the Flint Ridge Cave System, but the cave was remote and visitors were few. Collins had an ambition to find another cave he could open to the public closer to the main roads, and entered into an agreement with a neighbor to open up Sand Cave, a small cave on the neighbor's property. On January 30, 1925, while working to enlarge the small passage in Sand Cave, Collins became trapped in a narrow crawlway below ground. The rescue operation to save him became a national media sensation and one of the first major news stories to be reported using the new technology of broadcast radio. After four days, during which rescuers were able to bring water and food to Collins, a rock collapse in the cave closed the entrance passageway, stranding him inside, except for voice contact, for more than two weeks. Collins died of thirst and hunger compounded by exposure through hypothermia after being isolated for fourteen days, and three days before a rescue shaft reached his position. Collins' body was recovered two months later. Although Collins was an unknown figure for most of his lifetime, the fame he gained from the rescue efforts and his death led to him being memorialized on his tombstone as the "Greatest Cave Explorer Ever Known". Early life William Floyd Collins was born on July 20, 1887 , on the Collins family farm, located approximately east of Mammoth Cave near the Green River in Kentucky. He was the third child of Leonidas "Lee" Collins and Martha Jane Burnett, who gave birth to eight children: Elizabeth (died at three months of age), James "Jim", Floyd, Annie, Andy Lee, Marshall, Nellie, and Homer. Floyd began entering caves by himself at the age of six in search of Native American artifacts to sell to tourists at the Mammoth Cave