Saturday, January 28, 2023

Three Nine Foot Giants Discovered in a Louisville, Kentucky Cave

 

Three Nine Foot Giants Discovered in a Louisville, Kentucky Cave



New York Times, February 8, 1876
The Early American Giant
   
    The public will be unpleasantly reminded of this callous indifference to the future on the part of prehistoric Americans by the recent discovery of three unusually fine skeletons in Kentucky. A Louisville paper asserts that two men lately undertook to explore a cave, which they accidentally discovered not far from that city. The entrance to the cave was small, but the explorers soon found themselves in a magnificent apartment, richly furnished with expensive and fashionable stalactites. In a corner of this hall stood a large stone family vault, which the two men promptly pried open. In it were found three skeletons, each nearly nine feet in height. The skeletons appear to have somewhat frightened the young men, for, on seeing so extensive a collection of bones, they immediately dropped their torch, and subsequently wandered in darkness for thirty-six hours before they found their way back to daylight and soda water.
     Now, it is evident that these gigantic skeletons belonged to men very different from men of the present day. A skeleton eight feet and ten inches in height would measure fully nine feet when dressed in even a thin suit of flesh. The tallest nine-foot giant of a traveling circus is rarely more than six feet four inches high in private life and without his boots, and even of this quality are scarce and dear. The three genuine nine-foot men of Kentucky must have belonged to a race that is now entirely extinct, and hence it would be a matter of very great interest if we could learn who and what they were