A western version of the Hatfields vs. the McCoys played a role in establishment of this site, which was the first cave in the world to be designated as a national park. It was also among the first NPS areas to use fire as a natural tool to maintain the landscape—but not inside the cave!

If you were planning a Black Hills trip and couldn’t visit all of the area's parks, would you skip Wind Cave? That would be a mistake, even if caves don’t interest you. There's plenty to see and do above ground at Wind Cave.

South Dakota’s Fossil Cycad National Monument was supposed to protect a geologic treasure when it was established in 1922, but its marvelous surface deposits of fossilized plants had already been stripped from the site. A bill signed into law on August 1, 1956, abolished the park, which has served ever since as a cautionary tale. If you don’t protect park resources, they won’t be there for future generations.

On a clear day, you often can see for miles and miles. But as a report from the National Parks Conservation Association points out, clear days are harder and harder to find in our national parks under the Bush administration's relatively laissez-faire approach to coal-fired power plants.