The park preserves steep-sided bluffs rising 500 feet (150 m) above the river and the narrow valleys between them, which support rare and fragile plant communities.

Much later a deep channel was carved into this stone by the ancient Mississippi River, which 10,000 years ago was greatly swollen from the melting glaciers to the north.

Side streams flowing into the Mississippi cut gullies into the river banks, creating a series of bluffs capped with erosion-resistant dolomite.

The layout was a long, narrow strip along the blufftops between La Crescent and Dresbach, sandwiched between U.S. Route 61 at the foot of the bluffs and a county road atop them.

However, when the state contacted the current private owners of the designated land, they proved unwilling to sell their river views, and none of the property was ever acquired.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' Division of Forestry had been buying up lots in the region since 1962 for what was to become the Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest.

This orientation catches prodigious amounts of sunlight, which in winter means the ground thaws daily and freezes nightly, retarding the establishment of any woody plants.