Wind Cave National Park is a United States national park 10 miles (16 km) north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the seventh U.S. National Park and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its displays of the calcite formation known as boxwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world's discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave. Wind Cave is also known for its frostwork. The cave is also considered a three-dimensional maze cave, recognized as the densest (most passage volume per cubic mile) cave system in the world. The cave is currently the fifth-longest in the world with 137.02 miles (220.51 km) of explored cave passageways, with an average of four new miles of cave being discovered each year. Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States.
Read more about Wind Cave National Park: Early Knowledge, Source of Cave's Name, Early Exploration and Tours, Surface Resources
Famous quotes containing the words wind, cave, national and/or park:
“The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears—as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk- happy.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1869–1959)
“Mankind which began in a cave and behind a windbreak will end in the disease-soaked ruins of a slum.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“Just so before we’re international,
We’re national and act as nationals.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)