Vernon Dalhart - "Death of Floyd Collins"

Floyd Collins was a pioneer cave explorer in Kentucky during the early 20th century. Kentucky is home to the world's largest cave system, Mammoth Cave. Many of Kentucky's caves share this interconnected, labyrinthian structure. Being a bit of a cave diver myself, I can only imagine the challenges and dangers Floyd encountered, given the inferiority of the equipment used back then. In early 1925, Floyd became trapped while trying to discover a new entrance to Mammoth Cave. Efforts to rescue Collins became a nationwide newspaper and radio sensation. Four days in, a collapse happened in the soft sandstone cave, no longer allowing rescuers to send Floyd food and water. Collins died of exposure, thirst, and starvation ten days later after spending two weeks underground. His body was recovered two months later.

For a month or two now, I've had a copy of Vernon Dalhart singing "Death of Floyd Collins" on Silvertone label (Sears and Roebuck) hanging on my living room wall as a decoration. The reason it's up there and not in my record collection is that it has a HUGE FAT crack all the way through half the disc. I'm pretty sure it's a heat fracture, because the crack has a sizable gap instead of the typical hairline fractures that one sees with shellac records. I got the record because it was priced very reasonably. Free. Thinking it wouldn't play, I hung it on a nail to look pretty.

Until today.

I decided to at least test it and, to my surprise, both sides played flawlessly without skipping! So, unlike the real Floyd Collins, this record was rescued and continues to live on to this day, weaving the legacy of a great pioneer and explorer of the nether-realms. So here's to you, Floyd, I'm thinking of you today!