Pennsylvania’s newest — and first subterranean — state park will open to the public on April 22, state officials announced on April 6.
Laurel Caverns State Park, located 50 miles south of Pittsburgh, spans about 435 acres and includes Pennsylvania’s largest and deepest limestone cave. The commonwealth’s 125th state park features some four miles of cave passages that take a couple of hours to hike through, dive as deep as 476 feet, and are home to the largest bat shelter in the Northeast, officials said during an April 6 press conference held within the cave.
The Cale family owned the Laurel Caverns for about 100 years before donating the land to the state. The family opened it as a park in 1964.
“Laurel Caverns has long been recognized as one of Pennsylvania’s most unique natural treasures,” said Corie Eckman, the manager of Laurel Caverns State Park. “As the largest cave in the state, it has provided generations of visitors with the opportunity to explore its remarkable geological formations and experience the beauty beneath the surface.”
Located in the Laurel Highlands region of Pennsylvania — an area of thousands of square miles in southwestern Pennsylvania that includes the state’s tallest mountain, Mt. Davis — the park draws about 50,000 people each year and plays an important role in community-building and Fayette County’s economy, Gov. Josh Shapiro said, nothing that outdoor recreation generates more than $20 billion annually for the state and supports 177,000 jobs in the commonwealth.
“I think it’s also important in these times of great division to find opportunities to come together and not pay so much attention to who you voted for, but instead pay attention to the terrain you get to walk together: the beautiful waterfalls, in this case, these underground caves,” Shapiro said. “All of a sudden, when you’re doing that with folks, those differences sort of blend away, and instead you find our common humanity.”
The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which oversees the commonwealth’s parks, will soon begin a master site plan for Laurel Caverns. That could include looking at visitors being able to sleep in the cave, said DCNR Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn. Other planned changes at the park will include more accessible parking, updated bathrooms, and electrical upgrades, according to a press release from the Shapiro administration.
“It’ll be part of a geo heritage area, and we’ll focus on geology and really turn people on to geology in a way that we can’t when underground is just a hypothetical thing,” Adams Dunn said. “But when you can come down and touch it and feel it and see it, it’s a different dynamic. And geology is an important discipline in society, and we need young people to really understand that.”
Fayette County Commissioner Vince Vicites and Fayette Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Muriel Nuttall said the new state park will help to further grow a local economy that is already bolstered by outdoor activity.
“Laurel Caverns already brings about 50,000 visitors each year, and today’s designation will help even more,” Vicites said. “That means more support for our local businesses, restaurants and our workforce across Fayette County.”
“We have thousands of people coming into this county every single day for work,” Nuttall said. “We have local businesses that are ready to grow, to serve more people and to expand. What today does is it builds on that momentum. It gives people yet another reason to come, another reason to explore more, and another reason to experience more of what Fayette County and the Laurel Highlands has to offer.”
