Natural History
Strouds Run is located within the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau. The park consists of mostly narrow valleys, narrow ridges, and steep hillsides. Bluffs and rock shelters are common throughout the park, formed by the Connellsville sandstone. There are a few springs in the park out of the Ames limestone, including Linscott Spring (which has an historic springhouse). Normal pool elevation of Dow Lake is about 665 feet above sea level, while the highest point in the park is about 1022 feet above sea level.
The forest in some areas of the park is over a century old without significant disturbance. The Riddle State Nature Preserve is nearby, including Hawk Woods, which is one of Ohio's very few genuine old-growth forests.
Common birds in the park include both black and turkey vultures, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks, and barn swallows.
Beavers and white-tailed deer are common in the park. Bobcats are known to be in the area, but none are known within the park itself.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)