Know Before
You Go

The gorges, caves, and waterfalls of Hocking Hills exist because of Black Hand sandstone — a coarse-grained formation deposited roughly 340 million years ago when this region lay beneath a vast inland ocean. Ancient rivers flowing from the proto-Appalachian Mountains carried sand into the shallow sea, building up layers over 100 feet thick.

The magic happens in the middle. The sandstone has three distinct layers: a resistant upper cap, a softer porous middle, and a resistant lower base. Water infiltrates the middle layer, dissolves the cementing minerals, and carries away loosened sand grains from the inside out — a process called sapping. Over thousands of years, this creates the massive horizontal recess caves beneath the cap rock. The region was never scoured by glacial ice during the last ice age (the glacial boundary runs just to the north), which is why these formations survived while similar geology elsewhere in Ohio was ground flat.

One more thing worth knowing: the creek flowing through the valley and feeding Cedar Falls is called Queer Creek. The name dates to the early 1800s — settlers found the creek's course geographically unusual, following an unexpected path through the hills. "Queer" simply meant "strange" or "unexpected" in early 19th-century English. The name appears in records as far back as 1834. The last local bison was reportedly killed along its banks in 1799, and the county's first election was held at Eby's mill near the creek.