Maquoketa Caves State Park preserves a rugged part of Iowa’s Driftless Area, where erosion created limestone bluffs, arches, and the state park system’s greatest concentration of caves. People were drawn to the area long before it became a park, as shown by artifacts and early recorded Native American visits, and by the mid-1830s Euro-American explorers had reached the caves. The site became a popular recreation spot in the 1860s, then grew into a state park after local women purchased land in 1921. Its character was largely shaped in the 1930s by New Deal construction, and it remains important for recreation, geology, and historic park design.