Blue Mounds State Park is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

of Minnesota, USA, in Rock County near the town of Luverne. It protects an

American bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...

herd which grazes on one of the state's largest

prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

remnants. The state park is named after a linear

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

of Precambrian

Sioux Quartzite The Sioux Quartzite is a Proterozoic quartzite that is found in the region around the intersection of Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa, and correlates with other rock units throughout the upper midwestern and southwestern United States. It was ...

bedrock which, although pink in color, is said to have appeared blueish in the distance to early settlers. Parts of the cliff are up to high. Unusual in the surrounding prairie landscape, they are a popular site for

rock climbing Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and ...

. The park also preserves a line of rocks aligned by

Plains Indians Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains (the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) of N ...

which marks where the sun rises and sets on the spring and fall

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...

es. It also has a small

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

for swimming, the only lake in Rock County. The park's interpretive center was once the home of the author

Frederick Manfred Frederick Feikema Manfred (January 6, 1912 – September 7, 1994) was an American writer of Westerns, very much connected to his native region: the American Midwest, and the prairies of the West. He named the area where the borders of Minnesota, ...

. Four structures and one building in the park, built by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

in the 1930s, are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Wildlife

The park is home to a small population of

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

s and

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

as well as various birds.

Bison herd

In 1961, three

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...

were acquired from the

Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge is located in the U.S. state of Nebraska and includes 19,131 acres (77.42 km2). The refuge borders the Niobrara National Scenic River on the west and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

. In 2012, the

Minnesota Zoo The Minnesota Zoo (formerly the Minnesota Zoological Garden), is an AZA-accredited zoo in Apple Valley, Minnesota. It is one of two state-supported zoos in the United States, with the other being the North Carolina Zoo. When it opened on May 22, 1 ...

and the

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or Minnesota DNR, is the agency of the U.S. state of Minnesota charged with conserving and managing the state's natural resources. The agency maintains areas such as state parks, state forests, recre ...

entered into an agreement to form a partnership and develop a Minnesota Bison Conservation Herd. In 2017, a bull with Yellowstone genetics was added to the herd. Diverse genetics allows for healthier populations as the park participates in the conservation of bison. The herd varies in size from roughly 65 animals in the winter to around 100 in the summer, after calves are born. To keep the population at a sustainable level, individuals are sold in a fall auction. The bison range is fenced off, and visitors are warned not to approach when these strong and unpredictable animals are near the fenceline.

Cultural history

According to local folklore the mound was used as a

buffalo jump A buffalo jump, or sometimes bison jump, is a cliff formation which Indigenous peoples of North America historically used to hunt and kill plains bison in mass quantities. The broader term game jump refers to a man-made jump or cliff used for hun ...

before European settlement, but no archaeological evidence has yet been found as verification. The soil of the mound was too thin and boulder-strewn for farming, saving it from the plow, although it was grazed. Parkland was originally established north of the Blue Mound for the purpose of providing work relief during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and water recreation. WPA crews built two dams on Mound Creek, creating Upper and Lower Mound Lake — and respectively — and facilities such as picnic grounds and a beach house. The Mound Springs Recreational Reserve opened in 1937. In the 1950s trees were planted around the lakes and campground. The lower dam was destroyed by flooding in June 2014, draining Lower Mound Lake, and in June 2016 the

announced the dam would not be rebuilt. FrederickManfredHouse

Land was added in 1955 and 1961, at which point the name was changed to Blue Mounds State Park. More lands were authorized in 1963 and 1965 to include the whole of Blue Mound and property to either side. The state bought

's house in 1972 to turn into an interpretive center, although they let him live there for three more years. Because the house was at the southern end of the mound and the developed part of the park was at the north end, a connecting road was surveyed across the top. Local conservationists argued the state out of this plan several times in the 1970s, citing the impact to the environment atop the mound. In 1986 a road was paved from the house south to a county highway instead, so that visitors to the interpretive center must hike in from the north or drive around the edge of the park to the south entrance. In 1989 the WPA developments were listed on the

as a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

. The district contains five

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

—four structures and one building: Upper Dam, Upper Mound Lake, Lower Dam, Lower Mound Lake (all created in 1938) and a latrine (built 1939–42) located by the current cart-in campground. They are considered historically significant as examples of

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

federal work relief and recreational development in southwestern Minnesota, and architecturally significant for their unique

National Park Service rustic National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings ...

design using Sioux Quartzite. The two dams are particularly noteworthy, blending into the natural rock walls of the creek, an exceptional application of rustic style to utilitarian structures.

Incidents

Blue Mounds State Park was the scene of a murder May 20, 2001, when Carrie Nelson, then 20, was beaten to death while working alone in the park office. A coroner said the wounds to her head appeared as if she'd been struck with a rock. The killer apparently stole about $2,000 from the park coffers. The case went unsolved for six years until May 2007 when, in a routine check of DNA samples of prison inmates in South Dakota, police found a match with DNA samples gathered from the crime scene. The samples linked Randy Leeroyal Swaney, 35, to the murder. He was serving time for a 2004 burglary.''Watch, DNA solved 2001 park slaying''
Star Tribune
, May 9, 2007, online edition. In August 2008, Randy Swaney was sentenced to life in prison.

References

External links

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

Minnesota Historical Society {{authority control 1937 establishments in Minnesota Climbing areas of the United States Grasslands of the North American Great Plains Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Prairies Protected areas established in 1937 Protected areas of Rock County, Minnesota State parks of Minnesota Works Progress Administration in Minnesota Grasslands of Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Rock County, Minnesota