McConnell Springs, a twenty-six acre natural park, surrounds the historic springs where the city of Lexington, Kentucky was named. This park is a non-profit organization in partnership with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Division of Parks and Recreation. Its mission is to restore and preserve McConnell Springs as a national historic site, an educational resource for culture and environment, and a passive recreational park.
Under your feet and all around, the landscape is karst topography: water dissolving soluble rock such as limestone has carved sinkholes, underground streams, caves, and springs. The most significant environmental feature here is a complex system of sinking springs. McConnell Springs is the only known site in Fayette County that has a series of artesian springs that come to the surface, go underground, reappear, flow on the surface and go back underground only to surface again a third of a mile away.
Think, too, of the wider significance: about 20% of the United States is underlain with karst landscapes, and 40% of all drinking water comes from karst aquifers. Trace the water as it surfaces, slips underground, and rises again a third of a mile away.