Laurel Caverns State Park, Fayette County

Need a ginormous cave for your next film project involving bats, vampires, dwarfs, dark elves, orcs, or whatever your creatives dreamed up in the script? Then spelunkle down to Laurel Caverns State Park in Fayette County. This natural wonder officially became Pennsylvania's first subterranean state park on April 8, 2026, when Governor Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn announced the opening of Laurel Caverns State Park. Now the 125th state park, the Caverns expands Pennsylvania's outdoor recreation economy which contributed $20.4 billion to Pennsylvania's economy in 2024 and supported approximately 177,000 jobs. Approximately 50 miles from Pittsburgh, Laurel Caverns is a 435-acre park centered around the largest and deepest limestone cave in Pennsylvania, which includes four miles of wide cave passages that go as deep as 476 feet and the largest bat shelter in the Northeast. The Caverns attract 50,000 annual visitors and will officially reopen to the public on Earth Day, April 22, to remain open until October. The Caverns’ state park designation — Pennsylvania’s first since 2022 — was made possible through the park’s donation to the Commonwealth by David and Lilian Cale who created the Laurel Caverns Conservancy to manage the park’s operations in 1986 after David’s family opened the park in 1964.