Falls Township, Hocking County

How Falls Township, Hocking County began

Falls Township is the pioneer township of Hocking County, with settlement dating to 1798, decades before the county itself was organized in 1818 out of parts of Athens, Fairfield, and Ross counties. It takes its name not from the Hocking Hills show caves but from an actual waterfall on the Hocking River where a mill was built in 1814, before the township's formal creation. The Hocking Valley Railway reached the town of Logan, the county seat that sits in the township's southwestern portion, in 1869, tying the township into the region's 19th-century coal trade. Today Falls Township is a large, two-part township (about 50 square miles, split with a detached northeastern section locally called "The Gore") that surrounds Logan and functions as the county's population and government center. It is not the location of Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, or Rock House, all of which lie in neighboring Benton and Laurel townships.

Settled 1798, per the pioneer-history chapter of an 1883 county history that calls Falls Township "The Pioneer Township", incorporated Organized as a township after 1814 (a mill at the falls on the Hocking River predates the township); Hocking County itself was organized March 1, 1818, by Not established from sources reviewed; the 1883 county history's Falls Township chapter (pp. 884-893) likely names first settlers, but we have not been able to read its full text.

Where the name comes from

The township takes its name from a waterfall on the Hocking River, where a mill had already been built in 1814, prior to the township's formation. This is a distinct, local falls/mill site (the Wikimedia Commons "Falls Mill Bridge" near Logan marks roughly this area today) and should not be confused with the much better-known waterfalls of the Hocking Hills (Old Man's Cave, Cedar Falls, Ash Cave), which are in Benton and Laurel townships, not Falls Township.

Before the town

No source reviewed documents a named Native American village, mound, earthwork, or trail specifically sited within Falls Township's boundaries. The county-level record is broader: the Hocking River's name is usually explained as a Delaware (Lenape) word rendered "Hockhocking," said to mean roughly "bottle river" from a bottle-shaped narrows in the stream, and the wider region was Adena-culture territory in the prehistoric period, with Delaware, Wyandot, and Shawnee people using the area by the 18th century. The documented prehistoric rock-shelter use in the Hocking Hills region -- notably the ash deposits at Ash Cave, read by researchers as centuries of accumulated campfire residue -- is specific to Ash Cave, which sources place in Benton Township, not Falls Township; it should not be attributed to this township. Hocking County's other well-documented mound sites (the George Deffenbaugh, Karshner, and Edith Ross mounds, and the Davis Works) are located in Salt Creek Township, also not Falls Township. We could not confirm any site-specific Native American history within Falls Township itself.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Adena culture.

Timeline

1. 1798 — Settlement in what became Falls Township begins, making it the pioneer (earliest-settled) township of the future Hocking County.
2. 1814 — A mill is built at the falls on the Hocking River that later gives Falls Township its name, before the township itself was organized.
3. 1818 — Hocking County, containing Falls Township, is organized from parts of Athens, Fairfield, and Ross counties.
4. 1869 — The Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad's mainline reaches Logan, the county seat within Falls Township's southwestern portion, on August 28, 1869, linking the township to Columbus and the coal trade.
5. 1871 — A branch line from Logan runs east to the New Straitsville coalfield, extending the railway network that passed through Falls Township.
6. 1988 — The Hocking Valley Railway Historic District, which runs through Falls Township as well as Green Township, Logan, and Starr Township, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 5.
7. 2002 — A brick section of Enterprise-Iles Road in Falls Township, part of the historic Inter County Highway 360, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (listed December 20, 2002).
8. 2020 — The U.S. Census records 11,886 residents in Falls Township.

Stories

The falls that named the township, not the ones tourists come for

Ask most visitors what "the falls" are in Hocking County and they will point you toward Old Man's Cave or Cedar Falls, deep in the Hocking Hills. But Falls Township's own namesake falls is a different, smaller feature on the main stem of the Hocking River, near where Logan now stands, and it was already doing industrial work -- turning a mill -- by 1814, several years before the township that would carry its name was organized. Settlement in the area had begun even earlier, in 1798, making this the first-settled township in what became Hocking County in 1818. The Hocking Hills show caves that draw the crowds today (Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave, Cedar Falls, Rock House) sit in Benton and Laurel townships to the south and west; Falls Township's claim to the name rests on this older, humbler mill site, not on the sandstone gorges the county is now famous for.

A brick road built for the coal trade

In the early 20th century, Ohio experimented with brick paving on its intercounty highway system, and a stretch of Enterprise-Iles Road west of Logan, part of the old Inter County Highway 360, survives from that era within Falls Township. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 as a rare intact example of the brick roadway type. The road runs through the same corridor that the Hocking Valley Railway had already opened up decades earlier: the railroad reached Logan in 1869 specifically to move coal out of the Hocking Valley coalfield, and its historic district today threads through Falls Township along with Green Township, Logan, and Starr Township. Between the rail line and the brick road, the built landscape of the township still carries the marks of the coal-hauling economy that shaped it in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Logan, City Of96% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)
• New Straitsville, Village Of3% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Old Straitsville Water Association0% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Old Straitsville-rockbridge0% of residentsGroundwater wells (8 wells)

High-hazard dams (1)

Public schools (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Shale and injection wells (3)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (4)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-07-28
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-26

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