Conkle's Hollow and Rock House

Conkle's Hollow and Rock House

Conkle's Hollow, a Hocking County gorge with cliffs nearly 200 feet high, bears a 1797 carving; nearby Rock House had a 16-room hotel from about 1835 to 1925.

At a glance

Fact	Value
Type	Gorge
County	Hocking
Established	1925
Coordinates	39.4571 N, 82.5748 W
Height of the Conkle's Hollow cliffs	nearly 200 feet (2025)
Width of the Conkle's Hollow gorge at its narrowest	100 feet (ODNR); 300 feet cliff to cliff (1933 and 1975 sources) (2025)
Trails in Conkle's Hollow State Nature Preserve	3.5 miles (2025)
Conkle's Hollow State Nature Preserve area	87 acres (2026)
Rock House passage (length x width x height)	about 200 x 20-30 x 25 feet (2025)
Rooms in the Rock House Hotel	16 (19th century)
Visitors to Rock House Forest Park, first ten months	53,049 (1931)
Park areas: Conkle's Hollow / Rock House	723 acres / 517 acres (1933)

Overview

Conkle's Hollow is a narrow gorge off Big Pine Road in western Hocking County whose Black Hand Sandstone cliffs rise nearly 200 feet and which is considered by some the deepest gorge in Ohio; it takes its name from a 'W. J. Conkle' who carved his name and the date 1797 on its west wall. Rock House, about five miles by road to the northwest in Laurel Township, is a tunnel-like passage about 200 feet long set halfway up a sandstone cliff, lit by window openings between stone pillars, and is the only true cave in Hocking Hills State Park. Rock House was a resort for decades before the state park existed: a 16-room hotel with a ballroom stood near it from about 1835 until 1925, though the sources disagree on who built it. The State of Ohio bought Conkle's Hollow in 1925 and dedicated it as a state nature preserve in 1977, while Rock House became one of the Hocking County forest parks and later part of Hocking Hills State Park. In the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps Company 505 was based at Camp Hocking beside Conkle's Hollow, and the African American Company 526 cut the steps and trails at Rock House.

The name

Conkle's Hollow is named for W. J. Conkle, who carved his name and the date 1797 into the sandstone of the gorge's west wall; nothing more about him is recorded in published sources. Rock House is named for its house-like form, a long passage in the cliff opening through window-like gaps between sandstone pillars; Henry Howe's correspondent in the 1880s called it 'a house within a wall of massive sandstone' and a Gothic hall with windows and portals. (source)

How the land formed

Both are cut in the Mississippian Black Hand Sandstone (about 345 million years old), a delta deposit with hard upper and lower zones and a weakly cemented, crossbedded middle zone. Conkle's Hollow (NE quarter of section 4, Benton Township) follows a major joint trending N. 60 W.; all three zones of the Black Hand show in its walls, which rise nearly 200 feet, and the gorge ends in a rock shelter under a waterfall. Rock House (section 19, Laurel Township) formed where groundwater seeped along a master joint running parallel to the cliff face and hollowed the soft middle zone into a corridor, with the hard upper zone as roof and the lower zone as floor; a second set of joints at right angles opened the windows. Most of the excavation happened in the wetter climate of the Pleistocene, and springs still flow across the floor and out the windows after heavy rain. Iron compounds stain the walls brown, red and orange, and algae and lichens add green. (source)

Native American history

Rock House holds physical evidence of Native use: small recesses in its rear wall, called 'hominy holes' by settlers, are believed to have served as baking ovens, and troughs cut in the floor collect spring water, which the Ohio Department of Natural Resources attributes to Native inhabitants over thousands of years of shelter use. No archaeological site is recorded in Conkle's Hollow itself in published sources; the hollow's best-known Native story, of hidden treasure and a carved arrow, is folklore. For the region, the 1975 state guidebook says rock shelters served as temporary seasonal camps for hunting parties rather than permanent homes, the ODNR says the Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee traveled through or lived in the area in the 1600s and 1700s, and the 1883 county history says the Wyandot held this tract. Settlement followed the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Rock House 'hominy holes' and water troughs: camp, Rock House, Laurel Township, prehistoric
Treaty of Greenville cession: treaty, Hocking County region, 1795

Stories

W. J. Conkle and the treasure of the hollow (legend)

The one hard fact about the name is an inscription: 'W. J. Conkle 1797,' carved on the west wall of the gorge, which the 1975 state guidebook takes as the mark of an early visitor. The Hocking Hills tourism site adds a folk legend. According to it, a band of Indians robbed a flotilla of settlers on the Ohio River of a large sum of money and hid it in a small recess high on the west wall, reached by felling one of two tall hemlocks against the cliff as a ladder. They carved an arrow on the opposite wall pointing to the hiding place and pushed the ladder tree down. When they came back for the money, a storm had toppled the second hemlock, and the money, the story goes, is still up there. Many locals claim to have seen the arrow, but it has since eroded away. (source)

The Rock House Hotel

Rock House was a resort long before it was a park. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says Levi Friend built a hotel there about 1835 and that Col. F. F. Rempel, a retired officer and Logan businessman, bought it with its gardens in 1878; the 16-room building had a ballroom and a livery stable. The Hocking Hills tourism site instead says Rempel built it in 1835 and that it held a U.S. post office. Henry Howe's correspondent, writing about 1886-88, described Rock House on Rempel's 300-acre farm, where he had 'recently erected' a simple, comfortable hotel for the summer crowds. The 1975 state guidebook says the hotel stood until 1925 on the spot now occupied by the picnic shelter, which CCC Company 505 built in 1934. The main building is gone, but plants from its gardens survive. (source)

Carvings, a riddle and 'Robbers Roost' (legend)

Visitors have carved names and dates into Rock House's walls for well over a century; the 1975 state guidebook noted that many of the visible dates were already more than 100 years old, and Howe's correspondent wrote of countless inscriptions on the rocks. One carving at the door of the cavern, in the shape of a book, reads 'I.T.F.B.R.B.A.R. - I.T.F.F.A.W.M.T.A.W.' Howe's correspondent decoded it in the 1880s as 'In the fall Buck Run bananas are ripe. In the frosty fall a wise man takes a wife,' Buck Run bananas being the local name for pawpaws. According to local folklore recorded by the tourism site, less welcome visitors used the cave too: robbers, horse thieves, murderers and bootleggers, earning Rock House the nickname Robbers Roost. (source)

Company 526 at Rock House

By 1934 Company 526, one of Ohio's Black CCC camps, had taken shape at Camp Logan in the Hocking Hills; like most Black enrollees nationally, its men worked in a segregated camp. At Rock House the men of Company 526 cut steps into the sandstone cliffs leading up to the cave, blazed a looped trail, built a stone bridge and safety walls, and put up picnic shelters of blight-killed American chestnut, all while reforesting the 750-acre site. They also built roads that opened the area to motorists, and by 1935 cars from Kentucky and West Virginia were reported at Cantwell Cliffs. The camp's teams played ball against white camps and the village of Laurelville, beating Laurelville 11-10. Before Camp Logan closed in 1937 the company had improved more than 2,000 acres and planted 300,000 trees. (source)

Powder from the caves

Gunpowder was one of Laurel Township's earliest trades. The 1883 county history says John White started making gunpowder at a mill just west of the future Gibisonville and that the township's first recorded death was his son, killed when the powder mill exploded. The 1975 state guidebook says a mill was built at Gibisonville in 1835 to make gunpowder from saltpeter found in nearby caves and gorges, and the ODNR likewise dates a powder mill near Rock House to 1835. Samuel P. Hildreth noted in the 1830s that hunters had long boiled the region's cave earth for saltpeter. Whether these accounts describe one mill or several is not clear from the sources. (source)

Timeline

c. 345 million years ago: The Black Hand Sandstone of the Conkle's Hollow cliffs and Rock House is deposited as a delta in a shallow Mississippian sea. (source)
1795: The Treaty of Greenville opens the Hocking region to white settlement. (source)
1797: W. J. Conkle carves his name and the year into the west wall of the gorge that now bears his name. (source)
1812: Laurel Township, home of Rock House, gets its first settlers: a Mr. Smith and two Koons brothers who came to avoid the War of 1812 draft. (source)
1818: Hocking County is organized. (source)
1835: A powder mill is built near Rock House as the area begins to develop. (source)
c. 1835: Levi Friend builds the Rock House Hotel, a 16-room hotel with ballroom and livery stable near the cave (the tourism site credits Col. F. F. Rempel with building it in 1835). (source)
1871: A lithograph of Rock House is published in E. B. Andrews's Ohio geological survey report. (source)
1878: Col. F. F. Rempel, a retired officer and Logan businessman, buys the Rock House Hotel and gardens. (source)
1883: The History of Hocking Valley describes Rock House as a room about 100 feet long on sandstone pillars in a 166-foot wall. (source)
c. 1888: Henry Howe's correspondent reports Rock House on Rempel's 300-acre farm, with a recently built hotel for summer crowds. (source)
1925: The State of Ohio purchases Conkle's Hollow to preserve its scenery. (source)
1925: The 16-room Rock House hotel, built in 1835 on the site of today's picnic shelter, stands until this year. (source)
1931: Rock House Forest Park draws 53,049 visitors in the first ten months of the year. (source)
1933: Karl Ver Steeg lists Conkle's Hollow Park at 723 acres and Rock House Park at 517 acres, and notes a fire lookout tower near Rock House. (source)
1930s: CCC Company 505, one of the first CCC camps organized in Ohio, is housed at Camp Hocking; enrollees build its administrative cabin of American chestnut, plentiful because blight was killing the species. (source)
1934: Company 505 builds the shelter house on the former site of the Rock House Hotel. (source)
1934: The African American CCC Company 526 has taken shape at Camp Logan; at Rock House its men go on to cut steps, blaze a looped trail and build a stone bridge and chestnut picnic shelters. (source)
1937: Camp Logan closes after Company 526 has improved more than 2,000 acres and planted 300,000 trees. (source)
1942: The last CCC camps in Ohio close as the United States enters World War II. (source)
1949: The new Ohio Department of Natural Resources takes over the Hocking Hills park areas, including Rock House, from the Division of Forestry. (source)
1975: The Ohio Geological Survey guidebook maps the joints that shaped Rock House and describes Conkle's Hollow's gorge and rim trails. (source)
1977: Conkle's Hollow is dedicated as a state nature preserve. (source)

Sources

Towns and ZIP codes

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

Towns

ZIP codes

43149 Good Hope Township and Rockbridge

Questions

Why is it called Conkle's Hollow?

Conkle's Hollow is named for W. J. Conkle, who carved his name and the date 1797 into the sandstone of the gorge's west wall. The 1975 state guidebook takes the inscription as the mark of an early visitor. Nothing more about Conkle is recorded in published sources, and a folk legend about hidden treasure and a carved arrow later grew up around the hollow.

How deep is Conkle's Hollow?

The Black Hand Sandstone cliffs of Conkle's Hollow rise nearly 200 feet, and some consider it the deepest gorge in Ohio. At its narrowest the gorge is 100 feet wide according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, while 1933 and 1975 sources give 300 feet cliff to cliff. The State of Ohio bought it in 1925, and it became a state nature preserve in 1977.

What is the legend of the treasure in Conkle's Hollow?

According to a folk legend told by the Hocking Hills tourism site, a band of Indians robbed settlers on the Ohio River and hid the money in a recess high on the gorge's west wall. They reached it by felling one of two tall hemlocks against the cliff and carved an arrow on the opposite wall pointing to the spot. A storm toppled the second hemlock, and the story says the money is still there.

How was Rock House in Hocking Hills formed?

Rock House formed where groundwater seeped along a joint parallel to the cliff face and hollowed the soft middle zone of the Black Hand Sandstone into a corridor. The hard upper zone became the roof and the lower zone the floor, and joints at right angles opened its windows. Most of the excavation happened in the wetter Pleistocene climate, leaving a passage about 200 feet long.

Was there a hotel at Rock House?

Yes, a 16-room hotel with a ballroom and livery stable stood near Rock House from about 1835 until 1925. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says Levi Friend built it and Col. F. F. Rempel bought it in 1878, while the Hocking Hills tourism site says Rempel built it in 1835. A picnic shelter built by CCC Company 505 in 1934 now stands on the hotel site.

Did Native Americans use Rock House?

Yes, Rock House holds physical evidence of Native use. Small recesses in its rear wall, called 'hominy holes' by settlers, are believed to have served as baking ovens, and troughs cut in the floor collect spring water. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources attributes them to Native inhabitants over thousands of years of shelter use, and the 1975 state guidebook says rock shelters served as seasonal hunting camps.

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