Starr's Cave Park & Preserve

About Starr's Cave Park & Preserve

Starr’s Cave Park and Preserve is a 184-acre state nature preserve and park area owned by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and managed by Des Moines County Conservation.

The area features two miles of scenic hiking trails, a segment of the Flint River Trail, and is a place rich with natural and cultural history. Download Park & Trail Map here.

It is also home to Starr’s Cave Nature Center, the headquarters of Des Moines County Conservation’s award-winning Environmental Education Program.

Rock formations along Flint Creek in Starr’s Cave Park and Preserve are found no where else in the world. The bluffs are composed of limestone and dolomite and contain hints of the area’s past, frozen in time as fossils. These fossils include brachiopods, crinoids, cup coral, and gastropods.

Besides Starr’s Cave itself (which is closed indefinitely to protect bats, see below), there are two other caves: Devil’s Kitchen and Crinoid Cavern (pictured above). Unlike Starr’s Cave, these two were not formed naturally but instead are manmade. Word has it that mineral prospectors were looking for zinc back in the 1920s. To see what lay behind the surface, they blasted the rock with dynamite, creating large openings for future park explorers to marvel at and explore.