History of Hocking State Forest
About 350 million years ago, the Appalachian Range rose slowly from the ocean depths. The rains came, and over the millennia, these mountains weathered and washed to the east and west. The floor of the western sea slowly rose, leaving a great alluvial plain in an area that a little biped mammal would one day call "the Ohio Country."
By the time the geologists call "The Pleistocene Epoch," millions of generations had past, and fern trees and giant amphibians were no more. Streams and rivers had cut through the hard sandstone of the plain, leaving a country of flat topped ridges and sharp canyons. Then the Kansan glacier of the first ice age pushed slowly south smoothing ridge tops and filling valleys. The Illinoisan and the Wisconsin glaciers followed after this leaving end-moraines and filling backwater areas with benches of sand and gravel. Even here, the glaciers blocked the course of what is now the Ohio River and forced it into its present course. Tributaries were also blocked, causing these streams to back up and spill over the hills and into the new Ohio Valley. Today, the present course of the Hocking River follows one of these valleys to the Ohio River in what used to be an upstream direction.
Mankind is believed to have moved into this area about 15,000 years ago, roaming the edge of the Wisconsin glacier. By the time of Christ, the Adena culture was growing corn, squash, and children in the Hocking Valley. It was the Delaware Indians who gave the Hocking River her name. Noting a bottle-shaped pool by a waterfall, they called the stream "Hockhocking," or Bottle River.
The Europeans changed all this. In 1744, Lord Dunmore started the removal and destruction of native people. Even when the colonists had separated politically from Europe, they continued to "develop" the wilderness. Ridge tops were cleared and bottoms were drained for farming. Streams were blocked for waterpower. Mining for coal, iron, fire clay, saltpeter and glass sand started. Millions of cords of wood were used for heating, cooking and charcoal. The best trees went to sawmills. A system of roads, canals, and railroads made almost every valley ridge accessible to these people.
By the time of the first world war, subsistence farms were scattered over the ridges and hollows. Buffalo and elk had been gone for 100 years. Beaver had been trapped out since 1840. Livestock and fires had devastated the remnants of once-great forests. The introduced chestnut blight was dealing American chestnut trees a death similar to what the Dutch Elm disease was to deal American elm trees 30 years later. Once fertile hillsides were gone – many washed into streams, rivers, drinking water, fish habitat and shipping channels. Mankind had finally developed the technology to use timber, soil, air, water, mineral and wildlife resources faster than they could recover. Descendants of the pioneers were starting to learn the importance of providing for future generations.
In the early 20th century the Ohio Agricultural Resource and Development Center was established to work side by side with Federal Conservation Programs. What is now the Ohio Division of Forestry was formed to promote timber management and forest fire control. By 1950 a State Department of Natural Resources was formed to develop all aspects of land and resource management.
Today, the Ohio Division of Forestry is still at work helping private land owners and sister agencies with the management of the forest resources. Forest land is on the increase, particularly where timber harvesting is balanced with timber growth. The beavers, deer and turkey are back. Forest fires are actively suppressed. Facilities for camping, hunting, hiking, rock climbing and horseback riding are now provided on state land for the crowded residents of this industrial state. Wood products, soil and watershed protection, recreation and wildlife do not have to suffer just because 20th century man is a part of the forest environment. The puny changes we have wrought upon the land in the last few heartbeats of geologic time are small compared to what the land itself has done over the millennia. And we are getting better…
