The Lakota’s place of genesis and the world’s first cave to be afforded National Park status. Wind Cave National Park was established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt and is notable for its calcite formations known as Boxwork. It is also the densest cave system in the world as well as being, at a 149miles, one of the longest.
Wind Cave National Park is a national park of the United States located 10 miles north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established on January 3, 1903, by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the sixth national park in the U.S. and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its calcite formations known as boxwork, as well as its frostwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world’s discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave.
Wind Cave is one of the best-known examples of a breathing cave. The cave is recognized as the densest cave system in the world, with the greatest passage volume per cubic mile. Wind Cave is the seventh longest cave in the world with 154.2 miles (248.16 km) of explored cave passageways and the third longest cave in the United States, though it is only the second longest cave in Custer County, South Dakota behind Jewel Cave. Despite the close proximity, no connection has ever been found between Wind Cave and Jewel Cave and most geologists believe the caves are not connected. Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed grass prairie in the United States.
The passages of the cave are said to “breathe” as air continually moves into or out of them, equalizing the atmospheric pressure of the cave and the outside air. When the air pressure is higher outside the cave than inside it, air flows into the cave, raising the cave’s pressure to match the outside pressure. When the air pressure inside the cave is higher than outside it, air flows out of the cave, lowering the air pressure within the cave. A large cave such as Wind Cave with only a few small openings will “breathe” more obviously than a small cave with many large openings.
Rapid weather changes, accompanied by rapid barometric changes, are a feature of western South Dakota weather. If a fast-moving storm was approaching on the day the Bingham brothers found the cave, the atmospheric pressure would have been dropping fast, causing the cave’s higher-pressure air to rush out all available openings, creating the wind for which Wind Cave was named.
The Lakota, Cheyenne, and other Native American tribes who travelled through and made camps around the area were aware of the cave’s existence, as were early Euro-American settlers, but there has been no recorded evidence discovered that anyone actually entered it.
The Lakota spoke of a hole that blew air, a place they consider sacred as the site where they first emerged from the underworld where they had lived before the demiurge creation of the world. Originally called Washun Niya, Wind Cave played an important role in the traditions and culture of the Lakota people. The fables of these people tell the story of Tokahe, the first human to emerge from the cave, symbolizing an emergence from the underworld. His story and presence at Wind Cave is an important part of Lakota history, and heavily influences their origin story.
Wind Cave and other areas throughout the Black Hills were important to the native people in other ways beyond spirituality. Nicknamed, euphemistically, as a “supermarket,” the areas surrounding the cave provided abundant resources for native survival. Often during the winter seasons, such areas served as ideal spots for camps; much of the game they hunted preferred the shelter provided by the cave and made these areas ideal to become Lakota settlements and hunting grounds.
The eventual dispossession of the Lakota people followed the consistent history of dispossession of indigenous peoples across the country. In 1851 a Treaty was formed at Fort Laramie, entering the tribe into a legal relationship with the U.S. government. Another Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 redefined and reduced the borders of Lakota land within the Black Hills. Article two within that treaty allowed for forts to be built within Lakota land and in 1874 General George A. Custer began surveying the land and mistakenly reported a significant presence of gold, despite the geologist on his team of surveyors saying there were no quantities of substance. Miners then began to invade the hills in search of gold, which was against the treaty with the Lakota people, though the government did little to punish such offenses. In 1875 the Lakota title to the land was deemed invalid due to their lack of structural development and supposed “wasting” of the land. When the Dawes Act was passed in 1877, the site was opened to settlers and effectively sealed the dispossession of the Lakota from their ancestral lands.
The first documented discovery of the cave by white Americans was in 1881, when the brothers Tom and Jesse Bingham heard wind rushing out from a 10-inch (25 cm) by 14-inch (36 cm) hole in the ground. According to the story, when Tom investigated the hole, the wind exiting the cave blew his hat off of his head.
From 1881 to 1889, few people ventured far into Wind Cave. Then in 1889 the South Dakota Mining Company hired Jesse D. McDonald to oversee their mining claim on the cave site. The South Dakota Mining Company may have hoped to find valuable minerals, or it may have had commercial development of the cave in mind from the start.
No valuable mineral deposits were found, and the McDonald family began developing the cave for tourism. Jesse initially hired his son Alvin (age 16 in 1890) and, beginning in 1891, Alvin’s brother Elmer, to explore and help develop the cave.[15] Alvin fell in love with the cave and kept a cave diary.[16] Others who worked at Wind Cave and helped explore it between 1890 and 1903 include Katie Stabler, Emma McDonald (Elmer’s wife), Inez McDonald (Emma and Elmer’s daughter), and Tommy McDonald (brother of Elmer and Alvin).
By February 1892 the cave was open for visitors; the standard tour fee was apparently $1.00. Tourists explored the cave by candlelight on guided tours. These early tours were physically demanding and sometimes involved crawling through narrow passages.
Like the nearby Jewel Cave National Monument, currently the third longest cave in the world, Herb and Jan Conn played an important role in cave exploration during the 1960s.
Above ground, Wind Cave National Park protects a diverse ecosystem with eastern and western plant and animal species. Wildlife that inhabits this park include raccoons, elk, bison, coyotes, skunks, badgers, ermines, black-footed ferrets, cougars, bobcats, red foxes, minks, whooping crane, pronghorn and prairie dogs. The Wind Cave bison herd is one of only four free-roaming and genetically pure herds on public lands in North America. The other three herds are the Yellowstone Park bison herd, the Henry Mountains bison herd in Utah, and on Elk Island in Alberta, Canada.