[7] Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed grass prairie in the United States, as well as the southern terminus of the South Dakota Centennial Trail.

The Lakota, Cheyenne, and other Native American tribes who traveled through and made camps around the area were aware of the cave's existence, as were early Euro-American settlers, but there has been no recorded evidence discovered that anyone actually entered it.

[10] Originally called Washun Niya, Wind Cave played an important role in the traditions and culture of the Lakota people.

Nicknamed, euphemistically, as a "supermarket," the areas surrounding the cave provided abundant resources for native survival.

[13] Miners then began to invade the hills in search of gold, which was against the treaty with the Lakota people, though the government did little to punish such offenses.

[13] When the Dawes Act was passed in 1877, the site was opened to settlers and effectively sealed the dispossession of the Lakota from their ancestral lands.

The South Dakota Mining Company may have hoped to find valuable minerals, or it may have had commercial development of the cave in mind from the start.

Wind Cave National Park protects a diverse ecosystem with eastern and western plant and animal species.

Wildlife that inhabits this park include raccoons, elk, bison, coyotes, skunks, badgers, ermines, black-footed ferrets, cougars, bobcats, red foxes, minks, whooping crane, pronghorn and prairie dogs.

Being that Wind Cave is located in the great plains, these temperature rises have already started to affect the park and the area around it.

Elk Mountain Campground, located in a ponderosa pine forest, is about 1.25 miles (2.0 km) from the visitor center.

The campground has 75 sites for tents and recreational vehicles and is open year-round with campfire programs offered in the summer and limited services available in the winter.

Deposited in an inland sea, chert, gypsum, and anhydrite lenses within the limestone are evidence of high periods of evaporation.

When sea levels dropped at the end of the Mississippian, dissolution of the limestone formed a Kaskaskia paleokarst terrain, complete with solution fissures, sinkholes, and caves.

Geologic uplift started during the Laramide Orogeny, which lowered the water table, draining the cave system and enlarging it.

[27]: 18, 20–21 During the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary debate on December 19, 2019, candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar referenced the Wind Cave as part of an attack on fellow candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who had hosted a campaign fundraiser in a purported wine cave.

"[28] South Dakota public figures, including the state's Representative Dusty Johnson, used it to promote tourism to Wind Cave National Park.