Qualla: Scioto Trail State Park

Scioto Trail State Park: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States, CC BY 2.0. William Hewitt lived in a cave near here until his death in 1838. The hermit is something of a local legend - a man who chose a hole in the sandstone over neighbors and town life, surviving in the woods south of Chillicothe in the early decades after Ohio statehood. The replica log church that now stands in the park honors the more conventional version of Ross County frontier life: the First Presbyterian congregation of Chillicothe, founded in 1797, whose original log structure stood on a similar site. Two monuments in a 218-acre park to two ways of being alone in Ohio woods - one in church on Sunday, one in a cave year-round.

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Image: Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States | CC BY 2.0

Scioto Trail State Park: Park Inside a Forest

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Analogue Kid at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Scioto Trail State Park is a small enclave - 218 acres - inside the much larger Scioto Trail State Forest, which sprawls across thousands of acres of the Scioto River valley south of Chillicothe. The park provides the developed recreational core: Caldwell Lake for boating, fishin...

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Image: Analogue Kid at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Scioto Trail State Park: Oaks and Hemlocks

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States, CC BY 2.0. The forest mix here is unusual for southern Ohio. Oak dominates as expected, but eastern hemlock - a conifer normally associated with cooler northern forests - clings to the shaded ravines and stream valleys where the microclimate stays cool enough for it to thrive. Dogwood bloss...

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Image: Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States | CC BY 2.0

Scioto Trail State Park: The Church and the Hermit

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States, CC BY 2.0. The replica of Chillicothe's First Presbyterian log church anchors the cultural side of the park. The original congregation was founded in 1797, the year before Ohio's first territorial capital was established at Chillicothe, and the log building was its first permanent home. The...

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Image: Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States | CC BY 2.0

Scioto Trail State Park: The Quiet Kind of Ohio

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States, CC BY 2.0. Scioto Trail does not deliver dramatic landmarks the way the nearby Hocking Hills do. There are no famous overhanging cliffs or waterfalls, no caves with chandeliers of ice in winter. What it offers instead is the underdrawn version of Ohio backcountry - wooded hills, a small lak...

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Image: Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States | CC BY 2.0