Versailles State Park

	Versailles State Park
	Busching Covered Bridge in Versailles State Park
location	Ripley County in Indiana (USA)
surface	24.23 km²
Geographical location	39 ° 4 ' N , 85 ° 14' W Coordinates: 39 ° 4 '20 " N , 85 ° 13' 52" W
Setup date	1943
administration	Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources

The Versailles State Park is the second largest state park in the US state Indiana with 24.23 km² and is located in Ripley County northeast of the city of Versailles on US Highway 50 . During the Great Depression in 1934 the National Park Service planned a park area in Ripley County and selected a suitable area of 688 hectares of former farmland. The following year, Company 596 of the Civilian Conservation Corps began building the infrastructure for a recreation area with over 200 young men between the ages of 18 and 28. This included accommodation, community and administrative buildings as well as access roads, paved paths, picnic and leisure facilities with wooden and brick elements, tree planting and erosion control measures . Company 596 was relocated to Oregon as early as 1937. Most of the structures built are still in place.

The site was transferred to the state of Indiana in 1943 and opened as Versailles State Park. Laughery Creek , named after Colonel Archibald Lochry from the American Revolutionary War, flows through the park area . Since the Silurian era , the river has eroded the limestone layers, exposing Ordovician layers, so that fossils of bryophytes , Brachyopidae , corals, sea lilies and starfish can be found in the park . Numerous sinkholes and springs are an indication of underground watercourses. Forced laborers began to build a dam in 1954 that dammed Laughery Creek to the 93-acre Versailles Lake. In 1958 the lake was opened to the public as a further recreational opportunity for swimming, fishing and boating. Along with the swimming pool with water slide, which was built in 1987, swimming in the lake was banned. Camping facilities, bridle paths and trails for mountain bikes complete the leisure offer. In the years 2007-2010, between 250,000 and 266,000 visitors were counted annually.

Busching Covered Bridge

In the southern approach area of Versailles State Park, the Busching Covered Bridge crosses Laughery Creek. It was built in 1885 by Thomas A. Hardman in the Howe-Truss framework after William Howe . The covered bridge is 52 m long, 4.6 m wide and 4.8 m high. An extensive bridge renovation was carried out in 2005 and a memorial plaque was attached.