Blue Mounds State Park

Blue Mounds State Park is a state park in Rock County, Minnesota, United States, near the town of Luverne. It protects an American bison herd which grazes on one of the state's largest prairie remnants. The state park is named after a linear escarpment of Precambrian Sioux Quartzite 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 100 feet (30 m) high. Unusual in the surrounding prairie landscape, they are a popular site for rock climbing. The park also preserves a 1,250-foot-long (380 m) line of rocks aligned by Plains Indians which marks where the sun rises and sets on the spring and fall equinoxes. It also has a small reservoir for swimming, the only lake in Rock County. The park's interpretive center was once the home of the author Frederick Manfred. Four structures and one building in the park, built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.