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50 free Wind Cave National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Wind Cave National Park trivia quiz covers the South Dakota park that in 1903 became the first cave anywhere in the world protected as a national park. It ranges across the cave itself, one of the longest and densest on Earth with 95 percent of the world's known boxwork, the 'breathing' that gave it its name, and the mixed-grass prairie above it where bison, elk, pronghorn and black-footed ferrets roam. There is plenty of history too: the Lakota emergence story of Tokahe and the sacred hole that blew air, the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty and Custer's gold survey, the Bingham brothers and the hat blown off Tom's head in 1881, teenager Alvin McDonald mapping ten miles by candlelight, dollar tours by candle, Theodore Roosevelt's 1903 park act, the bison brought from the Bronx Zoo and Yellowstone, and even a 2019 presidential-debate cameo. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a Black Hills road-trip game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Badlands, Mount Rushmore and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Wind Cave National Park is in which U.S. state?
South Dakota
It lies in the southern Black Hills, 10 miles north of a small spa town.
Q 02Which president established the park on January 3, 1903?
Theodore Roosevelt
It was the sixth U.S. national park and the first cave anywhere in the world to get the title.
Q 03What worldwide distinction did the 1903 designation confer?
Earliest cavern protected as a national park
A neighbouring cavern in the same county followed in 1908 as the first national monument created to protect one.
Q 04Roughly what share of the world's discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave?
About 95%
The honeycomb of thin mineral fins was first noted here.
Q 05Boxwork is made of thin intersecting blades of which mineral?
Calcite
The fins once filled cracks in the rock; the softer bedrock around them dissolved away and left them standing proud.
Q 06Why is the cave said to 'breathe'?
Air flows in and out as outside pressure changes
A huge cave with only a few small openings breathes far more obviously than a small cave with many mouths.
Q 07Which brothers first documented the cave in 1881, when wind blew off Tom's hat?
Tom and Jesse Bingham
The opening was just 10 by 14 inches; a fast-dropping barometer that day would have sent air rushing out.
Q 08Which teenager mapped the cave's first 8 to 10 miles by candlelight from 1889 to 1893, keeping a diary?
Alvin McDonald
His work was so thorough that no major new passages were found until 1963, seventy years after he died.
Q 09How did the young explorer find his way back out of the cave?
He unrolled string behind him
Survey teams still occasionally find bits of his string, and in 2009 found his July 1893 signature in a room thought unvisited.
Q 10What killed the cave's young chief guide at the age of 20 in December 1893?
Typhoid fever
He probably caught it in Chicago while showing cave samples at the Columbian Exposition; his grave is on the hill above the natural entrance.
Q 11Roughly what did an early candlelit tour of the cave cost when it opened to visitors in 1892?
$1.00
Tours meant crawling through narrow passages by candle, and were physically demanding.
Q 12Which firm hired Jesse McDonald in 1889 to oversee its claim on the cave?
South Dakota Mining Company
No valuable minerals turned up, so the family developed the cave for tourists instead.
Q 13In Lakota tradition, what was the first human to emerge from the underworld through the cave called?
Tokahe
The Lakota considered the sacred hole that blew air the place of their emergence.
Q 21Besides boxwork, which two other formations mix in the lower levels?
Frostwork and cave popcorn
Moonmilk coats many surfaces and mineral rafts float in the deepest pools.
Q 22Above ground, the park protects the largest remaining example of what habitat in the United States?
Natural mixed-grass prairie
It is also the southern end of the state's Centennial Trail.
Q 23The park's bison herd is one of a handful on public land in North America that are what?
Free-roaming and genetically pure
Q 14What was the Lakota name for the cave?
Washun Niya
The area around it was so rich in game and resources that it has been nicknamed a 'supermarket'.
Q 15Which 1874 expedition wrongly reported major gold in the Black Hills, triggering an invasion of Lakota land?
Custer's
His own geologist said there was no gold worth the name; the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty was ignored anyway.
Q 16Wind Cave ranks where among the world's longest caves, with about 168 miles of mapped passage as of 2025?
Sixth
Oddly it is only the second-longest cave in its own county, behind Jewel Cave.
Q 17Which longer nearby cave system in the same county has never been found to connect to this one?
Jewel
Most geologists believe the two systems are separate; Jewel Cave had 220 miles mapped by 2025.
Q 18Wind Cave is recognised as the world's densest cave system by what measure?
Passage volume per cubic mile
Three levels of passages are packed into the upper 76 metres of one limestone layer.
Q 19Which limestone, laid down in a Mississippian inland sea, holds the cave's three levels?
Pahasapa
Red sands and clays of an overlying formation later filled many of the early cavities.
Q 20Which mountain-building event lifted the region, dropped the water table and drained the cave?
Laramide orogeny
The water table now sits 150 metres down and keeps dropping about 0.4 metres every thousand years.
Roughly 95 percent of bison elsewhere carry cattle genes; this herd has minimal introgression and is brucellosis-free.
Q 24The park's bison herd was founded with 14 animals from which zoo, plus six from Yellowstone?
The Bronx Zoo (New York Zoological Society)
A bull from a North Dakota park herd joined in the 1960s, and the herd has since seeded the Tallgrass Prairie herd in Kansas.
Q 25Roughly how large is the park's bison herd?
250 to 400
The NPS and The Nature Conservancy aim for at least 1,000 breeding bison of Wind Cave lineage across satellite herds.
Q 26Which endangered mustelid, once declared extinct, lives in the park and eats mostly prairie dogs?
Black-footed ferret
Declared extinct in 1979, it was rediscovered in Meeteetse, Wyoming, in 1981 and bred back from a handful of survivors.
Q 27Roughly what share of that endangered mustelid's diet is prairie dogs?
Up to 90%
It hunts sleeping prairie dogs in their burrows at night.
Q 28Which endangered bird's population in the park is considered a non-self-sustaining wild population?
Whooping crane
Elk, pronghorn, cougars and prairie dogs round out the prairie's cast.
Q 29Which couple, also famous for exploring Jewel Cave, drove Wind Cave's exploration in the 1960s?
Jan and Herb Conn
Major new passages were finally found in 1963, seventy years after the teenage guide's death.
Q 30Which spa town 10 miles from the park is its gateway and home to a famous mammoth fossil site?
Hot Springs
The Mammoth Site there holds the world's largest collection of mammoth bones, and Evans Plunge has 87-degree spring water.