During the war of 1812 America went through a very dodgy period. The British blockade of American ports effectively blocked imports of saltpeter and, hence, production of gunpowder. The upside of this was that it made the mining of natural reserves of nitrates economically viable and the main beneficiary was the huge Mammoth Cave complex in Kentucky where the whole process of mining and production was carried out. The mining ceased about 1815 at the end of the war.http://www.aditnow.co.uk/mines/Mammoth-Cave-Nitrate-Other-Rock-Mine/ 

In 1839 A Dr. John Croghan purchased the cave for $10,000. Among the “property” Dr. Croghan received for that price were several slaves, including a cave guide named Stephan Bishop. The National Park Service website describes Bishop as “one of the greatest explorers Mammoth Cave has ever known.”

Croghan was an odd character to say the least and he came up with the bizarre idea of turning the cave into a hospital. Croghan believed the cave’s constant 54-degree temperatures could cure consumption, so he had eleven consumption ‘huts’ built and fifteen patients moved in. Dr. Croghan’s “consumptive colony” was a dismal failure. Two patients died within the first year, all 15 got worse, (surprise, surprise) and Dr. Croghan himself died from tuberculosis in 1849. The Arizona desert the next stop!

The huts survived. The photo shows ten women posing at one of the consumptive huts in 1912.
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