Hocking Hills State Park - History

History

The name, Hocking Hills

Hocking County was named after the Hockhocking River. Hockhocking, in the Delaware tongue, signifies a bottle. In Shawnee, Wea-tha-Kagh-Qua-sepe, meant bottle river. The Hockhocking River had a waterfall of nearly 20 feet located about 6 or 7 miles northwest of Lancaster. Above the falls, the creek was very narrow and straight, forming the "bottle" neck.

The Hockhocking enters the county from Good Hope Township in the northwest and then flows southwest, touches Marion Township, continues through Falls and Green Townships, and exits the county through northwestern Starr Township. The river is then in Athens County.

History of the Park

More than 330 million years ago, the Hocking Hills State Park area was relatively level and was covered by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. For millions of years, the ocean’s currents deposited immense amounts of sand and gravel. After millions of years, the ocean receded, and the sandy layers bonded with silica to form the Black Hand Sandstone that underlies the area. It formed like a sandwich, with a hard top and bottom and a soft middle layer. When the Appalachian Mountains arose, form and feature were cast upon the area and created Hocking Hills State Park.

Hocking Hills State Park was hemmed in by the ancient north-flowing Teahs River to the west, and the then north-flowing Hocking to the east. The landscape remained fairly static for millions of years. Any changes were minuscule, and were slow to develop. When the Wisconsin Glacier began melting back to the north about 10,000 years ago, the landscape would undergo dramatic changes. The glacier stopped in northern Hocking County, so the area suffered indescribable flooding. The ancient Teahs River was buried under tons of glacial silt, and the direction of the Hocking River was reversed.

When the glacial torrents found cracks in the hard capstone, the water poured through to flush out the soft middle layer. This left long tunnels where the gorges are today. Eventually, the weight of the tops caused them to come crashing down. The "slump rocks" in the gorges today are what’s left of the hard top layer. In just a few centuries, the rushing waters of the glacier carved the soft middle layer of sandstone into the myriad dimples and wrinkles that decorate the cliffs and grottos today. Early settlers in Muskingum County found an ancient black human handprint on a cliff that is part of this same sandstone formation. That is the same "Black Hand Sandstone" that is seen in six areas of the Hocking Hills State Park.