Coffee? Oh, you mean my survival juice?
Wind Cave National ParkIn 1901, a bill creating Wind Cave National Park was signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. It lies 10 miles (16-km) north of Hot Springs, South Dakota, the eighth U.S. National Park to be created and the first protecting a cave. (Mammoth Cave in Kentucky was authorized as a national park in 1926.) For centuries, Indians knew the entrance to Wind Cave, and its strong air movements in or out. The first person reported to explore the cave was Charlie Crary in fall of 1881. It was first systematically explored by Alvin McDonald from 1890 until his death, at age 20, from typhoid fever in 1893. He had been hired for the job by the South Dakota Mining Company. No minerals were found to mine, but the company may have been interested in developing tours. The cave is noted for its rare cave formations known as boxwork, a honeycomb of thin blades of calcite projecting from veins in the walls and ceilings.« |
