Booth’s Amphitheatre

Gothic Avenue leads off into the darkness at the top of the stairs.

NPS Photo/ Thomas DiGiovannangelo

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An intersection named for actor Edwin Thomas Booth (1833-1893), brother of John Wilkes Booth. Edwin was the famous of the two brothers, until the night of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. While Edwin and his theatre troupe were visiting Mammoth Cave in 1876, he gave a recital of Hamlet's soliloquy from the natural stage formed by the rock outcropping in Gothic Avenue. From this natural stage his voice would be amplified and carried. 

The white marks along the ceiling were created by early guides throwing flaming  torches to light up these upper levels. In order to improve accuracy and distance fabric was tied around small rocks. The friction of the rock scraping across the ceiling would expose fresh layers of limestone beneath the soot stained ceiling.