Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Country Acres South • Page 1
Country Saturday, June 4, 2022
PRSRT STD ECR U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #4 Madelia, MN
Acres
2 Second Ave S Suite 135 Sauk Rapids MN 56379
SOUTH
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Volume 1, Edition 1
is in their element
PHOTOS BY KATE RECHTZIGEL
Niagara Cave is home to speleothems, fossils and a 50-foot waterfall BY KATE RECHTZIGEL STAFF WRITER
HARMONY - The Bishop family is in its element at Niagara Cave, winding through the stalactites and stalagmites, fossils 450 million-yearsold, the underground stream and a waterfall
that plunges 50-feet. The cave is home to different types of speleothems; stalactites, stalagmites, botryoids, flowstone and columns. “I saw it for sale in a local newspaper and followed up on it,” said Mark Bishop, the owner and manager of the cave. “I was very ex-
cited about it because I have been a rockhounder my whole life.” He and his wife wanted their kids to go to a smaller school district and the family who owned the cave was transitioning out of it. It was April, 1995. Bishop grew up on his family farm near Byron which was like most back in the day and had a diverse mixture of livestock ranging from dairy cows, pigs, chickens and sheep. At the age of 16, his family sold the farm and he later went to pursue
a career as a realtor and worked for the Farm Service Agency in Rochester. But Bishop’s real love was for rocks and more specifically, underground caves. Bishop, who has degrees in environmental studies and physical geography bought the cave in Harmony in 1995 and packed up his wife, Jennifer, and four sons, Eric, Christopher, Ryan and Aaron. Christopher passed away in 1999 and Eric helped out with cave operations until he married and moved to Canada. Now, almost 27 years later, the cave is still in the family and Bishop helps his two sons, Ryan and Aaron, who have degrees in geology, run cave operations along with other employees. His wife Jennifer, a retired nurse, and also helps out with the family business. “I’ve always liked caves and when I was young, my parents didn’t have a lot of money so they used to take me to caves on vacations,” he
said. “When this cave became available, it really piqued my interest.” The cave was discovered in 1924 when Phil Todd, who was running John Kennedy’s land at the time for corn, alfalfa and oats, noticed he was missing three of his pigs. Todd asked his hired hand, Clifford Booth, and nephews, Howard and Gordon Elliot, to track the pigs down and after searching around the farm, they found them at the bottom of a 75-foot-angled sinkhole in the middle of a field squealing, but alive. “They got ropes and lights and lowered themselves down into the hole to rescue the pigs,” Bishop said. “In fact, the building we are in today sits over where the sinkhole once was.” Word got out that these farmers had discovered this sinkhole and three cavers, Joe Flynn, Leo Tekippe and Al Cremer, came up from Decorah, Iowa to explore the cave.
Mark Bishop stands inside Niagara Cave on May 5. Bishop has always loved rocks and underground caves since he was a kid.
ST R
Publications bli ti The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
This month in the
COUNTRY:
3
Welcome to Country Acres South
5
Baughmans boast benefits of Boer goats Cannon Falls
Watch for the next edition of 6 Country Acres South on June 18, 2022
June is Dairy Month
9
The Bishop family (from left) Ryan holding his son, Zachary, Aaron, Jennifer holding Alexander and Mark sit just outside of Niagara Cave near Harmony. The family has been running the cave since April of 1995.
The cavers, the story says, were instantly amazed by the 2-mile size and spectacular beauty inside the cave. The explorers spent many hours in the passageways before coming across the underground waterfall for which the cave was aptly named, after Niagara Falls in New York. “The greatest feature in the cave is the waterfall, so the name was very fitting,” Bishop said. The cavers got to work and removed mud and silt from the sinkhole and the echo chamber. While removing silt and mud from the echo chamber, they discovered the bones of a prehistoric bear. The bones were sent to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa for proper identification, but the bones disappeared and never resurfaced.
Bishop page 3
Bison believers for 30 years Winona
11 Minnesota’s fist breakfast on the farm Rochester
