Maplewood State Park is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, United States, near Pelican Rapids. The park preserves a pre-contact habitation site that was occupied in two different periods (650–900 CE and 1450–1650 CE) in a forest/prairie transition zone. Located in the Leaf Mountains, Maplewood encompasses in Otter Tail County and is known for its hardwood trees including

sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the ...

basswood ''Tilia americana'' is a species of tree in the family Malvaceae, native to eastern North America, from southeast Manitoba east to New Brunswick, southwest to northeast Oklahoma, southeast to South Carolina, and west along the Niobrara River to ...

American elm ''Ulmus americana'', generally known as the American elm or, less commonly, as the white elm or water elm, is a species of elm native to eastern North America. The trees can live for several hundred years. It is a very hardy species that can ...

, and

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

, which together provide a display of fall colors each year. It became a state park in 1965, and an

archeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

within the park, the Maplewood Site, was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1978.

Popular culture

Jim Fletcher, the author of ''The Lore Adventure Trilogy'', built several small villages with the help of students of the Pelican Rapids High School and other local people. Several of these villages are placed in Maplewood State Park. One is accessible by a hiking trail, while another is located inside one of the lakes. Those are two of the known locations, while there may be many others inside of Maplewood.

Gallery

File:Beauty at the Park.jpg, A lone flower rests among the park's fall leaves File:Maplewood State Park Wiki Version.JPG, Vegetation cover map of Maplewood State Park

References

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External links

Maplewood State Park photos and information
{{authority control 1963 establishments in Minnesota Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Protected areas established in 1963 Protected areas of Otter Tail County, Minnesota State parks of Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Otter Tail County, Minnesota