Clifton Gorge

Clifton Gorge

Clifton Gorge was cut by glacial meltwater about 18,000 years ago. John Bryan left the land to Ohio in 1918, and it opened as a state forest park in 1925.

At a glance

Fact	Value
Type	Gorge
County	Greene
Established	1925
Coordinates	39.8002 N, 83.8357 W
Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve area	268 acres (2019)
John Bryan State Park area	752 acres (2018)
Drop of the Little Miami through the gorge	130 feet (entering at about 980 feet above sea level) (2018)
Height of the Cedarville dolomite cliff	40 to 50 feet (c. 2000)
Wildflower species growing wild in John Bryan State Park	more than 340 (2018)
Population of Old Chillicothe, the nearby Shawnee town	about 1,100 (18th century)
John Bryan's barn	206 x 120 x 75 feet (1918)
Christmas lights at Clifton Mill	over 5 million (2026)

Overview

Clifton Gorge is a narrow canyon of the Little Miami River just west of the village of Clifton in Greene County, cut through Silurian dolomite by glacial meltwater at the end of the last ice age. Settlers used its fall to power mills from the early 1800s: Owen Davis built the first mill at Clifton, the village was platted around the mill in 1833, and grist mills, sawmills, a woolen mill and a paper mill lined the river until water power stopped paying late in the century. Businessman John Bryan bought 335 acres along the gorge in 1896 as Riverside Farm and left them to the state in 1918; they opened as one of Ohio's first forest parks in 1925 and are now the 752-acre John Bryan State Park. A two-mile stretch of the gorge became a National Natural Landmark in 1968 and a state nature preserve, and upstream the Clifton Mill, on a site milled since the first decade of the 1800s, is still in operation and draws crowds to its Christmas lights.

The name

Clifton was named for the cliffs along the Little Miami River; the 1881 county history says the village was 'named from the continuous beautiful cliffs.' The state park is named for John Bryan (see timeline, 1918). (source)

How the land formed

The gorge walls are layers laid down in a warm, shallow Silurian sea about 430 million years ago, when a large coral reef covered the Dayton area. The hard Cedarville, Springfield and Euphemia dolomites form the cliffs; the softer Massie and Osgood shales beneath form the slopes. About 18,000 years ago the ice sheet split around the Bellefontaine Outlier into the Miami and Scioto lobes, and as it melted a great volume of meltwater was funneled between them toward Clifton, leaving the 33-mile Kennard Outwash Terrace and pouring into the Little Miami basin. Just west of Clifton the water worked into fractures in the Cedarville dolomite and cut a narrow gorge. Where the river reached the soft Osgood Shale it cut faster, undermining the dolomite above, which breaks off as slump blocks such as Steamboat Rock. The same dolomite ledge, the Niagara Escarpment, is the rock of Niagara Falls. (source)

Native American history

The state preserve's brochure records Hopewell earthworks and Fort Ancient campsites near the gorge, and the state park describes the Moundbuilders and later the Shawnee as the area's earliest known peoples. The major historic village nearby was Old Chillicothe, a Shawnee town of about 1,100 people on the Little Miami at present Oldtown, roughly five miles south of Yellow Springs. The county's 1918 history places Blackfish, Tecumseh and the renegades Simon Girty and McKee in council there, and Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton were held captive there. The state park adds that Tecumseh was a frequent visitor to the area. Kentucky expeditions under George Rogers Clark burned the town in 1780 and again in 1782. Greene County's 1918 history says the 1795 Treaty of Greenville opened Ohio to peaceful settlement and that the county lay south of the treaty line. Near the Yellow Spring, a small cave explored in 1878 held a piece of a human skull and a small child's bones along with animal bones, bone awls and a polished stone hatchet; whether it was a burial was never settled. No Native site inside the gorge itself is named in these sources.

Hopewell earthworks and Fort Ancient campsites: earthwork, Near Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve (exact locations not given), Hopewell (Middle Woodland); Fort Ancient (Late Prehistoric)
Old Chillicothe: village, Present Oldtown, Xenia Township, about 5 miles south of Yellow Springs, 18th century; destroyed 1780 and 1782
Antioch Bone Cave: other, Old Neff farm, about 200 yards from the Yellow Spring, Yellow Springs, Prehistoric (undated); found October 19, 1878
Treaty of Greenville: treaty, Greene County (county-wide), 1795

Stories

How the gorge was cut

The gorge walls were laid down in a warm, shallow Silurian sea about 430 million years ago. The hard Cedarville, Springfield and Euphemia dolomites form the cliffs, and the softer Massie and Osgood shales form the slopes below. About 18,000 years ago the ice sheet split around the Bellefontaine Outlier, and as it melted, water funneled between its two lobes toward Clifton and into the Little Miami basin. Just below Clifton the meltwater worked into fractures in the Cedarville dolomite and cut a narrow gorge; the rapids near the falls mark the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, the same rock layers exposed at Niagara Falls. Downstream, where the river reached the soft Osgood Shale, it cut faster and left the dolomite unsupported, so that blocks slumped or fell into the valley. The best known, Steamboat Rock, sits in midstream shaped so that the water rushing around it makes it look like a boat steaming forward. (source)

Darnell's Leap (legend)

The story, as told in the 1918 History of Greene County, concerns a young Kentuckian named Darnell, one of the men captured with Daniel Boone in 1778 and left behind at Old Chillicothe when Boone was taken to Detroit. Darnell escaped with a stolen rifle and by morning was resting in the woods northwest of the present village of Clifton when six Shawnee pursuers found him. He ran for the river, shot the leading pursuer, named in the account as Little Fox, and made for an ash tree he had once blazed at the edge of the cliff below the falls. There, the story goes, he leaped a chasm some 30 feet wide, caught a bush on the far side and pulled himself up, and the Shawnee gave up the chase. The county historian says the white prisoners later heard the story from Darnell himself; the state preserve's own brochure calls it one of the gorge's popular tales about a pioneer who 'supposedly' made the leap. (source)

Owen Davis and the hog thief (tradition)

Owen Davis ran the only mill for miles around on Beaver Creek, where settlers came 30 miles to grind corn and the county's first court met in a house on his farm. He was known for grinding on the Sabbath for customers who had come a long way, and when neighbors threatened to prosecute him he told them they could carry their corn 30 or 40 miles to the next mill. He was also quick with his fists: on August 2, 1803, at the first session of the county's common pleas court, he pleaded guilty to assault after fighting a Warren County man he had accused of stealing hogs, and was fined eight dollars. Tradition says he then told his son-in-law, associate judge Benjamin Whiteman, that if Ben stole a hog he would whip him, too. In 1805 Davis sold the Beaver Creek mill and built the first mill in Miami Township at the site of Clifton, which he ran until his death in February 1818; its stone foundation could still be seen near the later mill in 1918. (source)

The town that lost the railroad

Clifton was laid out in 1833 on land bought for General Patterson, who owned the mill on the Little Miami. The water power drew a distillery, sawmill and flouring mill, which people from 25 miles around kept busy; one old resident recalled seeing 35 wagon teams waiting their turn to unload grain, and the surplus flour was hauled to Cincinnati. The village sat on the Cincinnati, Lebanon and Columbus stage route and seemed likely to become a manufacturing town. When a railroad from Springfield to Xenia was proposed, Timothy Bates backed a Clifton route but grew lukewarm, while William Mills and the Yellow Springs promoters won it for their village. The stagnant millpond bred ague, and some families moved away to escape it. The 1881 county history concluded that the loss of the railroad and of its most enterprising citizens was a blow from which Clifton never recovered. (source)

John Bryan's Riverside Farm

John Bryan, a businessman with a deep respect for the natural world, bought 335 acres along the gorge in 1896 and called them Riverside Farm. In his will in 1918 he left the farm to the state of Ohio 'to be cultivated by the state as a forestry, botanic and wildlife reserve park and experiment station,' which would bear his name. In May 1925 the land became one of Ohio's first state forest parks. In 1949 it passed to the newly created Division of Parks and Recreation of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Today the park and the adjoining Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve together overlook the part of the gorge designated a National Natural Landmark. (source)

The last mill on the river

The Little Miami once powered five other mills within a mile of the Clifton Mill: a woolen mill, a sawmill, a paper mill, a barrel mill and another grist mill. The first mill on the site, by the mill's own account, was built by Owen Davis, a Revolutionary War soldier, who with his son-in-law Gen. Benjamin Whiteman also ran a sawmill and a distillery. Around 1810 Davis sold to Robert Patterson, whose mill supplied corn meal to federal troops from this part of Ohio in the War of 1812 while his woolen mill supplied cloth and buttons. The Armstrong family ran the mill for more than twenty years, and three generations of Prestons ran it until 1948. It is the only one of those mills still standing and one of the largest water-powered grist mills still in existence; after several owners, the Satariano family bought it to preserve it. (source)

Timeline

c. 430 million years ago: The dolomite and shale of the gorge walls form on the floor of a warm, shallow Silurian sea that covered Ohio. (source)
c. 18,000 years ago: Meltwater from the retreating ice sheet, funneled between the Miami and Scioto lobes, begins cutting the gorge at Clifton. (source)
1778: Daniel Boone and a party of Kentuckians taken by the Shawnee are brought to Old Chillicothe at present Oldtown, the setting of the Darnell's Leap legend at the gorge. (source)
1780: George Rogers Clark's Kentuckians burn Old Chillicothe and its crops; he returns to do so again in 1782. (source)
1795: The Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3 after Anthony Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers, is credited by the county historian with opening Ohio to peaceful settlement; Greene County lay south of the treaty line. (source)
1802: Revolutionary War veteran Owen Davis builds the first mill at the Clifton site, with a sawmill and distillery, according to the mill's own history. (source)
1803: At the first session of the Greene County common pleas court, miller Owen Davis pleads guilty on August 2 to assault in a fight with a man he accused of stealing hogs, and is fined eight dollars. (source)
1805: Davis sells his Beaver Creek mill and moves to Miami Township, where he builds the first mill in the township at present Clifton, according to the 1918 county history. (source)
c. 1810: Davis sells the grist mill to Robert Patterson, according to the mill's history; Patterson's mill later supplies corn meal to federal troops in the War of 1812. (source)
1818: Owen Davis dies on February 18. (source)
1826: Merchants Timothy Bates and Bennett Lewis are said to have opened their store at the mill by this year. (source)
1832: A post office named Clifton opens. (source)
1833: Bates and Lewis have Clifton surveyed into 32 lots; the plat is recorded August 24, and, by a story the county historian says may be true, carpenter A. G. Kiler builds 14 houses that summer, each occupied as soon as it is finished. (source)
early 1840s: The Springfield-Xenia railroad is routed three miles west through Yellow Springs instead of Clifton, and the village stops growing. (source)
1852: Gen. Benjamin Whiteman, Owen Davis's son-in-law and an early Clifton settler, dies on his farm near the village on July 1, aged 84. (source)
1896: Businessman John Bryan buys 335 acres along the gorge and names them Riverside Farm. (source)
1918: Bryan bequeaths Riverside Farm to Ohio 'to be cultivated by the state as a forestry, botanic and wildlife reserve park and experiment station' that will bear his name. (source)
1918: The county history of that year describes Bryan's Riverside Park as 500 acres of woods and meadows and his barn near Yellow Springs as the largest in the state. (source)
1925: In May, John Bryan's land becomes one of Ohio's first state forest parks. (source)
1948: Three generations of the Preston family, who followed the Armstrongs as millers, end their run at the Clifton mill. (source)
1949: John Bryan State Park is transferred to the new Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Division of Parks and Recreation. (source)
1968: Clifton Gorge is registered as a National Natural Landmark. (source)
1970: The state dedicates Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve, also a memorial to geologist John L. Rich, who worked for its creation. (source)
2025: In June a nature exploration center, the first in an Ohio state nature preserve, opens at the gorge with river aquariums, mill-history exhibits and a replica slump-block cave. (source)

Sources

Towns and ZIP codes

Water, health, jobs and history for the places on the shores and just downstream.

Towns

ZIP codes

45387 Yellow Springs

Questions

How was Clifton Gorge formed?

Clifton Gorge was cut by glacial meltwater about 18,000 years ago, when the ice sheet split around the Bellefontaine Outlier and water funneled between its two lobes toward Clifton. The water worked into fractures in the Cedarville dolomite, laid down in a shallow Silurian sea about 430 million years ago. Where the river reached the soft Osgood Shale it cut faster, so dolomite blocks such as Steamboat Rock slumped into the valley.

Who was John Bryan and how did John Bryan State Park start?

John Bryan was a businessman who bought 335 acres along Clifton Gorge in 1896 and called them Riverside Farm. In his will in 1918 he left the farm to Ohio as a forestry, botanic and wildlife reserve park that would bear his name. In May 1925 it became one of Ohio's first state forest parks, and in 1949 it passed to the new Division of Parks and Recreation. The park now covers 752 acres.

What is the legend of Darnell's Leap at Clifton Gorge?

According to a legend told in the 1918 History of Greene County, a young Kentuckian named Darnell, captured with Daniel Boone in 1778, escaped from Old Chillicothe and was chased by six Shawnee to the cliff below the falls. There, the story goes, he leaped a chasm some 30 feet wide, caught a bush and pulled himself up. The state preserve's brochure says the pioneer 'supposedly' made the leap.

How old is Clifton Mill?

The Clifton Mill stands on a site milled since the first decade of the 1800s. By the mill's own account, Revolutionary War soldier Owen Davis built the first mill there in 1802, while the 1918 county history dates it to 1805. Around 1810 Davis sold to Robert Patterson, whose mill supplied corn meal to federal troops in the War of 1812. Three generations of Prestons ran it until 1948, and the Satariano family later bought it.

How did Clifton, Ohio get its name?

Clifton was named for the cliffs along the Little Miami River; the 1881 county history says the village was 'named from the continuous beautiful cliffs.' Merchants Timothy Bates and Bennett Lewis had the village surveyed into 32 lots, and the plat was recorded on August 24, 1833. The village stopped growing in the early 1840s, when the Springfield-Xenia railroad was routed through Yellow Springs instead of Clifton.

When did Clifton Gorge become a nature preserve?

Clifton Gorge was registered as a National Natural Landmark in 1968, and the state dedicated Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve in 1970. The preserve, 268 acres in 2019, is also a memorial to geologist John L. Rich, who worked for its creation. The Little Miami River drops 130 feet through the gorge. In June 2025 a nature exploration center, the first in an Ohio state nature preserve, opened there.

More deep dives

See them all