Cave City, Kentucky - Mammoth Cave Wax Museum

Cave City, Kentucky - Mammoth Cave Wax Museum

A classic wax museum of historical and celebrity figures. Two wax museums compared in our story on "Waning Wax." Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Cave City, Kentucky - Mammoth Cave Wax Museum

I visited the Mammoth Cave Wax Museum with my daughter and we had a blast. The lady who runs the place is extremely nice, and from what I could tell, it must be a labor of love keeping the place open, because they don't exactly seem to rolling in cash these days.

Not much has changed from the other reviews. Some of the seated figures appear to have broken femurs. To our delight, much as in real life, Eleanor Roosevelt's face seemed to have melted somewhat. We imagined that Neil Armstrong must have told an offensive joke, because Sammy Davis Jr has turned his back to Neil with his fists clenched.

The procession from one diorama to the next can be a little slow, but try to imagine yourself as just having had a stroke, or not being able to see in the dark. That helped us kill some time between narrations.

Besides Mrs. Roosevelt, my favorite postcard is the aerial shot of the museum with the parking lot full of 1960's era automobiles. [Mike Wood, 11/16/2008]

[RA: Sammy's not ready to sock Neil Armstrong -- it looks like more of a hipster clench. Armstrong's joke, no doubt, involved that big moon rock he's holding in his right hand.]

Cave City, Kentucky - Mammoth Cave Wax Museum

I visited the Mammoth Cave Wax Museum in April -- the woman in the last display is indeed Dolly Parton who has, according to the audio narration, "Already made her motion picture debut" and is "well on her way to being a star".

Time hasn't been kind. The figures of John L Sullivan (who was included in a display with Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison) and Groucho Marx were missing, even though the narrator still tells us about them. Roosevelt was also missing a big chunk of his finger.

The place is kept clean, though. The only noticeable dirt was a huge cobweb between the heads of two of the disciples in The Last Supper display. [Jeff Wisniewski, 05/22/2006]