Forestville Mystery Cave 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 "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. It contains the village of Forestville, which has been restored to a 19th-century appearance. The

Minnesota Historical Society The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Educational institution, educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the Minnesota Terr ...

operates it as a historic site. Below ground the park contains Mystery Cave, the state's longest

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

, which is open to the public. The park is between Spring Valley and

Preston, Minnesota Preston is a city in and the county seat of Fillmore County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 1,325 at the 2010 census. The Root River runs through it, and Mystery Cave State Park is nearby. It bills itself as "America's Trout C ...

Mystery Cave

The park is in the

Driftless Area The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country and the Paleozoic Plateau, is a topographic and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme ...

, noted for its

karst topography Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

, which includes

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...

s and

s. The park is about from Mystery Cave and occupies approximately , with camping, interpretive programs, and hiking, horseback, cross-country skiing trails, cold water streams and excellent trout fishing. The cave includes

stalactite A stalactite (, ; , ) is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble and that can be deposited as a colloid, or is in suspension (chemistry ...

stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; ; ) is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist ...

s, and underground pools, and is a constant . It has over of passages in two rock layers and is being resurveyed and remapped by volunteers.

Geologic history

About 450 million years ago sedimentary rocks were deposited as the land was intermittently covered by shallow seas that transgressed and regressed. Over the eons the alternating deposits of mud and oceanic debris were compressed to form

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

and

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

layers. Today these layers are above sea level. Within the last 500,000 to 1,000,000 years, flood waters dissolved along fractures in the limestone bedrock to create most of the cave. Acidic rainwater also sculpted the land above and around the cave, creating thousands of

sinkholes A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...

and other karst features in the surrounding county.

Wildlife

The park contains a range of wildlife, from relatively rare species such as glacial snails and

timber rattlesnake The timber rattlesnake (''Crotalus horridus''), also known Common name, commonly as the canebrake rattlesnake and the banded rattlesnake,Albert Hazen WWright AH, species:Anna Allen WWright AA (1957). ''Handbook of Snakes of the United States a ...

s to common species such as

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from Procyonina, other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest ...

beaver Beavers (genus ''Castor'') are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. There are two existing species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-large ...

, two species of

fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

mink Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera ''Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the A ...

opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 126 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North A ...

woodchuck The groundhog (''Marmota monax''), also known as the woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. A lowland creature of North America, it is found through much of the Easte ...

, and four species of

squirrels Squirrels are members of the family (biology), family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and ...

Coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...

s howl at dusk. Numerous reptiles and amphibians are present. At least 175 species of birds have also been recorded. The South Branch of the Root River contains

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

brook trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada. Two ecological forms of brook trout h ...

, and

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

Historic Forestville

The

operates Historic Forestville as a

living museum A living museum, also known as a living history museum, is a type of museum which recreates historical settings to simulate a past time period, providing visitors with an experiential interpretation of history. It is a type of museum that recr ...

set in 1899. Costumed interpreters portray Forestville residents and go about daily activities in the general store, house, kitchen, farm, and barn. Forestville was a rural trade center in the 1800s that declined after the railroad was built elsewhere in 1868. Thomas Meighen, son of one of the town's founders, owned the entire village by 1890, including the general store, and the local residents worked on his property for housing and credit in the store. Admission to Historic Forestville is separate from the caves. Historic Forestville is open from May through October.

References

External links

Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park

Minnesota Historical Society: Historic Forestville
{{authority control 1941 establishments in Minnesota Caves of Minnesota Driftless Area Landforms of Fillmore County, Minnesota Living museums in Minnesota Minnesota Historical Society Minnesota state historic sites Museums in Fillmore County, Minnesota Protected areas established in 1941 Protected areas of Fillmore County, Minnesota Show caves in the United States State parks of Minnesota Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Fillmore County, Minnesota