Gypsum City Traditional Geocache
helms2049: Cache is gone.
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
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*** Congrats Pearl123, Michael and Jolinn on FTF!! ***
Easy, traditional cache which has log and pencil. Room for coins and tiny swag.
Thanks to local mining companies and the effortst of local legislators and community leaders, this attraction became a destination park in Webster County in 2006.
The first phase of the park is complete with 15 miles of trails running through native prairie vegetation and naturalized trees, a 1½ mile long motocross course, a safety training area, a youth riding area, and a parking area for 350 vehicles with trailers. It is a great place to see some spectacular riding! In the right weather, especially on weekends, there may be quite a few muggles. The next phase of development includes plans for a camping area.
Park is open from sunrise to sunset 7 days a week. Please do not park on the main road, there is plenty of parking at the site.
About the Gypsum:
One of the softest minerals known to exist is the basis for one of Iowa's most durable mineral resource industries. Gypsum is a gray to white-colored mineral that can be easily scratched with a fingernail, and is referred to chemically as a hydrous calcium sulfate.
Gypsum has several principal uses. Ground gypsum is added to Portland cement to slow the setting time of the cement. Pulverized gypsum, and to a lesser extent anhydrite, is used in agriculture as a soil conditioner and as an animal-food additive. The best known use of gypsum is as the principal ingredient in the manufacture of wallboard and plaster.
Since the 1850s, people have utilized the gypsum deposits found in Iowa. The first published report of the large gypsum resource was by geologist David Dale Owen in 1852 after noting outcrops along the banks of the Des Moines River valley in the Fort Dodge area during an 1849 trip into Webster County. The "Fort Dodge Beds," as the gypsum-bearing formation subsequently became known, were regarded by Charles Keyes in 1893 to be "by far the most important bed of plaster-stone known west of the Appalachian chain, if not in the United States."
During this time, the dimensioned gypsum stone was taken from the Cummin's quarries along Soldier Creek northwest of Fort Dodge. Natural exposures of gypsum still can be seen along this creek in Snell Municipal Park. It was in 1872 that Captain George Ringland, Webb Vincent, and Stillman T. Meservey formed a partnership, known as the Fort Dodge Plaster Mills, for the purpose of mining, grinding, and preparing gypsum for commercial products. These men constructed the first gypsum mill west of the Mississippi, at the head of what is now Gypsum Creek, and initiated the long and continuing history of gypsum production in Iowa.
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