Versailles State Park
The Versailles State Park is 24.23 km ², the second largest state park in the U.S. state of Indiana and is located in Ripley County, northeast of the town of Versailles on U.S. Highway 50 During the Great Depression, a park area in Ripley County in 1934 by the National Park Service planned and chosen a suitable area of 688 hectares original farm land. The following year, the Company 596 of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the infrastructure for a recreation area began with more than 200 young men 18 to 28 years to build. These included accommodation, community and administration buildings and access roads, paved paths, picnic and Freitzeitanlagen with wooden and brick elements, tree planting and erosion control measures. In 1937 the Company moved to Oregon 596. Most of the structures built are still available.
The area was in 1943 transferred to the State of Indiana and opened as the Versailles State Park. Due to the terrain park flows the Laughery Creek, named after Colonel Archibald Lochry from the American Revolutionary War. Since the Silurian, the river has eroded the limestone, while also exposed Ordovician layers, so that the park fossils of bryozoans, Brachyopidae, corals, sea lilies and feather stars can be found. Numerous sinkholes and springs are an indication of underground rivers. Forced laborers began in 1954 to build a dam that the Laughery Creek on 93 acres of Versailles Lake dammed. In 1958 the lake for the public will be released as a further recovery opportunity for swimming, fishing and boating. Along with the 1987 scale swimming pool with water slide, swimming was banned in the lake. Camping facilities, bridle paths and trails for mountain bikes off the leisure offer. In the years 2007-2010 250000-266000 visitors were counted annually.
Busching Covered Bridge
In the southern entrance area of the Versailles State Park Busching the Covered Bridge crosses the Laughery Creek. It was built in 1885 by Thomas A. Hardman in the Howe truss truss by William Howe. The covered bridge is 52 m long, 4.6 m wide and 4.8 m high. An extensive bridge rehabilitation was carried out in 2005 and a plaque attached.