Rock House in Hocking Hills State Park
- Ohio
Rock
House is unique in the Hocking Hills State
Park
region, as it is the only true cave in the
park. It is a tunnel-like corridor situated
midway up a 150-foot cliff of Blackhand
sandstone.
This House of Rock has a
ceiling 25 feet high while the main corridor
is 200 feet long and 20 to 30 feet wide. The
cavern was eroded out of the middle zone of
the Blackhand sandstone. The resistant upper
zone forms the roof and the lower zone forms
the floor. Water leaking through a
horizontal joint running parallel to the
cliff face caused the hollowing of the
corridor. This main joint or crack is very
visible in the ceiling of the Rock House. A
small series of joints run north to south at
right angles to the main joint. Enlargement
of this series of joints formed the
window-like openings of Rock House.
Nature has hewn out of
this cliff the Rock House complete with
seven Gothic-arched windows and great
sandstone columns which bear its massive
roof. As one might imagine, Rock house was
used for shelter by past visitors. Hominy
holes, small recesses in the rear wall of
Rock House, served as baking ovens for
Native Americans using the cave. By building
a fire in the small recesses, the rock
became heated on all sides, and food could
be bakes in this crude manner. Further
evidence of past use is the presence of
chiseled out troughs or holding tanks found
in the stone floor. When rainfall is
abundant, springs of water permeate through
the porous sandstone and flow into these
troughs fashioned by man and, when full,
continue across the floor and out of the
windows. In this way, residents were able to
maintain a small water supply in Rock House.
According to local folklore, other not so
welcome visitors frequented Rock House.
Robbers, horse thieves, murderers and even
bootleggers earned Rock House its reputation
as Robbers Roost.
Rock House has a colorful
past and has long been a popular tourist
attraction. In 1835, Colonel F.F. Rempel of
Logan erected a 16-room hotel compete with
ballroom, livery stable and a U.S. Post
Office. The hotel stood where the picnic
shelter is today. Numerous dated carvings in
the rock bear evidence of this area’s
long-standing popularity. One such carving
in the form of a book bears the letters:
ITFBRAR - ITFFAWMTAW which means, In the
fall, Buck Run bananas are ripe - in the
frost fall, a wise man takes a wife. (Buck
Run banana is local slang for the fruit of
the pawpaw tree.)
Rock House Trail Map (pdf.)
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