The Traditional Ballad Index: Floyd Collins:

Floyd Collins [Laws G22]
DESCRIPTION: Floyd Collins is trapped in a cave from which a rescue party cannot free him. He tells his parents that he had dreamt this would happen. At last, still trapped, he dies
AUTHOR: Andrew Jenkins
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: disaster dream death family
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Jan 30, 1925 - Floyd Collins is trapped in a "sandhole" cave near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, where he is caught by a landslide. He was discovered by his brother the next day, but attempts to rescue him failed
Feb 16, 1925 - Collins is found to be dead
FOUND IN: US(Ap,Ro,SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Laws G22, "Floyd Collins"
Darling-NAS, pp. 223-224, "Floyd Collins" (1 text)
DT 769, FLOYDCOL
RECORDINGS:
Fiddlin' John Carson, "The Death of Floyd Collins" (Okeh 40363, 1925)
Charlie Oaks, "The Death of Floyd Collins" (Vocalion 5069, c. 1926)
Notes: As the dates of the recordings show, this is really a popular song. But the number of versions collected show that it did become a folk song. The authorship is somewhat uncertain. Laws, following Wilgus, accepts the attribution to Andrew Jenkins, who wrote other songs which became traditional. But Brown quotes Thomas to the effect that it was written by one Adam Crisp. - RBW
File: LG22
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The Vernon Dalhart version lacks four stanzas in the middle of the longer one posted by Gene above. The 1925 recording of "The Death of Floyd Collins" can be heard at the Floyd Collins Web Page.

The Max Hunter Collection has two versions (wit lyrics, recordings, and music):

(1) Floyd Collins
Cat. #0246 (MFH #182) - As sung by Mrs. Gladys McChristain, Huntsville, Arkansas on October 1, 1958
(2) Floyd Collins
Cat. #0932 (MFH #182) - As sung by Ollie Gilbert, Mountain View, Arkansas on February 9, 1970

The Frank C. Brown Collection has three versions (Vol. II, pp. 498-501; title "Floyd Collins"). Jean Thomas collected one version, very similar to other ones but titled "The Doom of Floyd Collins", which is in Ballad Makin' in the Mountains of Kentucky (1939; Oak, 1964, pp. 118-119). Thomas's commentary (pp. 117-118), rather than the lyrics, would be more interesting and worth quoting:

"Tragic events always bring forth a number of ballads. Some ballad makers, alert to commercial value, hasten to the printer and have their composition struck off forthwith.
"A printer in an isolated county seat in the Kentucky mountains, who had only a poor assortment of battered type and a picture frame with which to work, once told me he did 'moughty well with the song-ballet of Floyd Collins,' selling them to wandering fiddlers who, in turn, sold their wares to eager listeners who gathered at the courthouse on Court day.
"Preceeding such a fiddler's sale one day, I heard him tell in a funeral-like voice how Floyd Collins, who worked in a sand cave, had warning of his fate in a dream just a few nights before his tragic end came. The wandering singer finds a most fruitful market for tragedy in his hand bill,--'the ballet of it' as mounatin people term the printed sheet. The title of such a printed song-sheet appears at the top and the name of the person selling it at the bottom. The small printed leaflets are convenient to carry in fiddle or guitar cases and are quickly disposed of at ten cents each. Not only do listeners stand spellbound with the minstrel's story of the gruesome death, but they will buy 'the ballet of it' till their last penny is gone. 'It is something to take home to the woman and youngins,' the menfolks say, and each and every one, though they may not be able to sing a note, will learn it word for word. The Doom of Floyd Collins, which I heard that day, is still popular among mountain minstrels and runs in this fashion:
[Lyrics quoted]"

~Masato