GLASGOW, Ky -- A of recent origin ...

GLASGOW, Ky -- A of recent origin book about Mammoth Cave betrays the story of the national park's slave history.

The part Making Their Mark: The Signature of Slavery at Mammoth Cave, is available at the visitor center at Mammoth Cave National Park.

Author beatitude Medley Lyons, chief of programs at Mammoth Cave, told the Glasgow Daily Times that she jumped "to get the story of Mammoth Cave's slave history public to the public, but also to make it a little bit better known within the National Park Service as well."

Lyon said near people have written before about Stephen Bishop, a slave who gave guided tours of Mammoth Cave. if it be not that she said other slaves -- so as Nick and Mat Bransford -- who worked as guides are not as well known.

The couple men were not brothers -- yet were owned by the same bodily substance Thomas Bransford.

Mat Bransford began giving guided tours of Mammoth Cave in 1838 His son Henry, also became a tour guide, and his grandsons were tour guides as well. Today, another Bransford descendant, Jerry Bransford, works there as a seasonal tour guide.

Mammoth Cave is the longest cave in the world, with more than 350 miles of recorded natural underground thoroughfares and was designated a World Heritage Site at the United Nations in 1981

In the 19th hundred sophisticated Easterners and Europeans would travel to Kentucky for 12-hour excursions into the cave, and their guides were frequently slaves of the cave-owners. Notable visitors included Ralph Waldo Emerson and the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind.

Today, park rangers lead the tours, which are just a scarcely any hours long and include stories about the cave's interesting human history as well as its geological significance. Cave drawings left by the agency of ancient people can be seen as well as more novel artifacts. For more information onward visiting Mammoth Cave, go to www.nps.gov/maca/.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided through ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved