Pony Creek Park in Mills County, Iowa, is both a recreation area and an important archaeological site centered on Pony Creek Lake. Along with boating, fishing, camping, prairie, woods, and views of the loess landscape, it preserves rare prehistoric Plains Indian earthen lodges. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 because at least two such lodges were known there, the only ones of their kind in the region on public land. The Davis Oriole Earthlodge Site, later named a National Historic Landmark, proved especially well preserved, offering evidence of lodge construction, pottery use, and a burned collapse that helped protect its remains.