Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota has added a new tract of land to its holdings. An interestingly tidy amount of land – 5,555 acres – was formally added to the park on October 15.
The new land includes an ancient buffalo jump (hunting ground where Native Americans drove buffalo off a cliff) and a historic homestead. Behind the acquisition was the Conservation Fund, which snapped up the new property at auction in 2010. They had been working with the original owners, the Casey family, since the year 2000.
Wind Cave has been a national park since 1903. As the name suggests, its primary importance is as a complex of caves with honeycomb-like formations called box-work, but it's also a Lakota sacred site. The new addition brings further elements of history to the mix. The overall park is some 30,000 acres of prairie and ponderosa pine forest, home to bison, pronghorn and coyotes.
Whether new hiking trails will be built remains to be seen; the next year or so will see the new land undergo a formal assessment for how it can be presented to the public and interpreted.
Previous article:
Next article:
Be the first to read new articles on the Historic Landmarks column when you subscribe to this column or use the RSS feed. You can also follow on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments