Situated in western South Dakota, 10 miles (16 km) north of the town of Hot Springs, Wind Cave National Park is an American national park. President Theodore Roosevelt declared it to be the first cave to be named a national park worldwide on January 3, 1903, making it the sixth national park in the United States.
The frostwork and boxwork, which are calcite formations, are the cave’s most famous features. Wind Cave is home to over 95% of the boxwork formations that have been identified worldwide.
Among the most well-known instances of a breathing cave is the Wind Cave. With the largest channel capacity per cubic mile, the cave is acknowledged as the densest cave system in the whole globe. With 154.2 miles (248.16 km) of cave tunnels investigated as of 2021, Wind Cave is the third longest in the United States and the seventh longest in the globe.
However, it is only the second longest cave in Custer County, South Dakota, after Jewel Cave. Notwithstanding their near vicinity, Wind Cave and Jewel Cave have never been found to be related, and the majority of geologists hold this opinion. The biggest surviving natural mixed grass prairie in the United States is found in the park above ground.
Name origin
It is reported that the cave’s passageways “breathe” because air constantly enters and exits them, balancing the atmospheric pressure inside the cave and outside. Air rushes into the cave when the outside air pressure is higher than the interior air pressure, increasing the pressure inside the cave to equal the outside pressure.
Air rushes out of the cave when the air pressure inside it is higher than outside, reducing the air pressure inside the cave. It will be easier for a huge cave, like Wind Cave, to “breathe” than it will for a tiny cave with many of little entrances.
The weather in western South Dakota is characterized by abrupt fluctuations in both the weather and the barometric pressure. On the day the Bingham brothers discovered the cave, there would have been a fast-moving storm coming, which would have caused the atmospheric pressure to decrease quickly. This would have allowed the higher-pressure air within the cave to rush out of any openings, generating the wind that gave Wind Cave its name.
Past Events
The cave’s presence was known to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and other Native American tribes that passed through and set up camps in the region, as well as to early Euro-American settlers, but no proof has been found to far that anybody ever went inside.
Native Americans from South Dakota’s Black Hills, known as the Lakota (Sioux), told stories about a hole that spewed air. They revered this spot because it was where they first came out of the underworld, where they had dwelt prior to the demiurge creating the world.
Wind Cave, which was once known as Washun Niya, was significant to Lakota customs and culture. These people’s stories relate to the tale of Tokahe, the first person to emerge from the cave and a representation of a person emerging from the underworld. He had a significant impact on the Lakota origin narrative and is remembered for his role in Wind Cave history.
The significance of Wind Cave and other Black Hills locations for the indigenous people extended beyond spiritual beliefs. The region around the cave, which the locals affectionately referred to as a “supermarket,” offered an abundance of supplies necessary for their existence.
These places created excellent camp locations during the winter months since many of the wildlife they hunted liked the shelter that the cave offered. As a result, these regions were great for Lakota towns and hunting grounds.
The Lakota people were eventually forced to leave their homeland, continuing a long history of indigenous peoples being forced from their homes across the nation. The tribe and the United States government came into formal ties after a treaty was forged at Fort Laramie in 1851.
The boundaries of Lakota land inside the Black Hills were redrawn and decreased by another Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. The second article of the contract permitted the construction of forts in Lakota territory. When General George A.
Custer started surveying the area in 1874, he claimed falsely that there was a substantial amount of gold here, even though the geologist on his surveying team had stated there was none.
After that, miners started to break the terms of the Lakota treaty by invading the hills in quest of gold, while the government did little to stop them. Because of their alleged “wasting” of the land and lack of structural development, the Lakota people’s claim to the property was declared unlawful in 1875.
The Dawes Act, which was approved in 1877, allowed for settlement and essentially put an end to the Lakota people’s expulsion from their ancestral territory.
The cave was initially found by white Americans in 1881 when Tom and Jesse Bingham heard wind rush out of a hole in the earth measuring 10 inches (25 cm) by 14 inches (36 cm). The tale goes that as soon as Tom peered down the hole, the wind coming out of the cave blasted his hat off his head.
Few individuals went very deep into Wind Cave between 1881 and 1889. Jesse D. McDonald was then employed by the South Dakota Mining Company in 1889 to manage their mining claim at the cave location. The South Dakota Mining Company may have planned to exploit the cave commercially from the beginning or it may have anticipated to uncover lucrative minerals.
After the McDonald family discovered no rich mineral resources, they started to develop a cave for tourists. Jesse first employed his son Alvin, who was sixteen in 1890, and his brother Elmer, who started working in the cave in 1891, to investigate and assist with its development.
Alvin kept a cave journal after falling in love with the cave. Among those who worked in Wind Cave and contributed to its exploration between 1890 and 1903 were Katie Stabler, Elmer’s wife Emma McDonald, their daughter Inez McDonald, and Tommy McDonald, Elmer and Alvin’s brother.
The cave was accessible to guests by February 1892, and it was reported that a typical trip cost $1.00, or about $30 in 2021. On guided tours, visitors investigated the cave by candlelight. These early tours required crawling through tight spaces and were physically taxing.
Plants and animals
A varied ecology that includes both eastern and western plant and animal species is preserved by Wind Cave National Park. Raccoons, elk, bison, coyotes, skunks, badgers, ermines, black-footed ferrets, cougars, bobcats, red foxes, minks, whooping cranes, pronghorn, and prairie dogs are among the animals that call this park home.
There are just four genetically pure, free-ranging bison herds remaining on public lands in North America, including the Wind Cave herd. The Henry Mountains bison herd in Utah, the Elk Island bison herd in Alberta, Canada, and the Yellowstone Park bison herd are the other three herds. As of right now, the Wind Cave bison herd is brucellosis-free.
Threatened Species
Both the whooping crane and the black-footed ferret are listed as endangered species. The Wind Cave National Park whooping crane population is regarded as a non-self-sustaining wild population.
Temperature
The vast plains have experienced a significant increase in temperature throughout time. Given Wind Cave’s location on the Great Plains, the park and its surroundings are already feeling the effects of these temperature increases.
The plains have seen temperature rises of two degrees Fahrenheit on average, with increases of up to five degrees in certain places. It is predicted that this tendency would result in drought-like conditions in the region.
Infrastructure
The park is traversed by a number of highways, and its surface is home to 30 miles (48 km) of hiking trails. An estimated 656,397 people visited the park in 2018. 2015 had the highest number of visitors to the cave—more than 109,000—since 1968, the year before cave tours were restricted to 40 guests at a time.
Three display rooms at the Wind Cave Visitor Center include topics such as the park’s natural ecology and fauna, the CCC’s work in the area, and the geology and early history of the caverns.
Situated within ponderosa pine forests, Elk Mountain Campground is around 1.25 miles (2.0 km) away from the visitor center. With 75 spots for tents and RVs, the campsite is open year-round, with limited amenities provided in the winter and campfire programs given in the summer.
Earth Science
The upper 76 meters of the Mississippian Pahasapa Limestone include the three layers that make up the Wind Cave system. Chert, gypsum, and anhydrite lenses embedded in the limestone, which were deposited in an inland sea, are proof of elevated evaporation times.
Sea levels fell near the end of the Mississippian, and the limestone dissolved, creating the Kaskaskia paleokarst region, complete with caves, sinkholes, and solution fissures. As a result, there is a discrepancy between this limestone and the Pennsylvanian Minnelusa Formation that it is layered atop.
These clays and crimson sands filled up the spaces. Dogtooth spar was used to cover the empty spaces. The Triassic Spearfish Formation, Tertiary White River Group, Permian Opeche Shale, and Permian Minnekahta Limestone were deposited later.
These underlying strata were eroded by Paleocene and Eocene erosion in the vicinity of the caverns, all the way down to the Minnelusa. The Laramide Orogeny caused the water table to drop, emptying and expanding the cave system before geologic uplift began. As of right now, the water level is 150 meters below the surface, dropping 0.4 meters per thousand years.
In Wind Cave, box work was first observed. These fins of calcite were formerly filled in fissures of gypsum and anhydrite. Pseudomorphs of calcite-gypsum occur often. Because of the weaker bedrock caused by the leaked sulfuric acid, it weathered more quickly than the calcite.
The resulting intersecting fins project between 0.6 and 1.2 meters out from the underlying bedrock, forming open chambers. The cave’s lower levels have a combination of frostwork, cave popcorn, and box work.
Wind Cave is also the site of the discovery of helictite plants. While calcite rafts are located at the lower levels of the cave system, moon milk may be found on a variety of surfaces.
Within popular culture
On December 19, 2019, during the Democratic Party presidential primary debate for 2020, Senator Amy Klobuchar brought up the Wind Cave in an attempt to disparage her opponent, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who had thrown a campaign fundraiser in an alleged wine cave. “I came here to make a case for progress, and I have never even been to a wine cave,” said Klobuchar. I recommend that you visit the Wind Cave in South Dakota, as I have done. Public leaders from South Dakota, such as Representative Dusty Johnson, utilized it to advertise Wind Cave National Park tourists.
The book And the Wind Whispered by Dan Jorgensen mentions the cave.
