History of our place

The owners of the cabin are Dave and Barb Crawford

The cabin was erected in 1999 and served as an unfinished hunting cabin with no road or utilities for about 20 years

The original land grant for the farmland was purchased by Barb's ggg grandfather, John Engle in 1826. John Quincey Adams signed the grant document.

Several descendents of Barb's family owned the farm before it was purchased from Charles D. & Mattie Federer by Dave's great grandfather,

William Franklin Walker in 1923. With this purchase, William then owned 640 acres which included four other contiguous neighboring farms.

As each of his five daughters married, they were given a farm

to live on, and the families worked together to farm the properties, buying farm supplies in common and sharing in the harvest (sharecropping within the family.) The William F. Walker farm was located at the junction of RT 33 and RT 180 where the rest area is now located. Natural Rock Bridge Farm was owned by Zora and Florence (Walker) Crawford.

In 1991 Dave's parents Harold (son of Zora) & Betty crawford purchased the farm, buying out Harold's three brothers.

Dave and Barb added on to the original farm house and moved to the farm in 2007.

The Natural Rock Bridge Preserve area (45.5 acres) was sold by Dave's grandfather Zora Crawford to the State of Ohio in 1977 to be used as a nature preserve. Many people visit each year to enjoy this natural sandstone feature.

The natural bridge at Rockbridge State Nature Preserve is the largest of 12 such formations in Ohio. It's existence comes from erosion of the black hand sandstone, the dominant bedrock of this region. It erodes easily and accounts for the spectacular geologic formations of the Hocking Hills. The natural arch of rock bridge is more than 100 feet long and 10-20 feet wide and gracefully arches 50 feet across a ravine. In the 1840's the Hocking Canal ran not far from the bridge. Then came the railroad lines that replaced the canals. It was during this generation that people began to visit the bridge on a large scale. Both boats and trains had a stopping point on the other side of the river, not far from the bridge. Visitors crossed a swinging bridge to get to the rock bridge.

In the 1920's, “The Rocks” as the rock bridge is referred to by family, was the playground of the four Crawford brothers and their neighbors. There were daring games played while at the bridge, like seeing who could jump the furthest, over an ever widening crevasse at the west end of the bridge. One year Harold's brother Clifford Crawford adjusted the tires on the family's Ferguson tractor and drove all the way across the bridge from the wider end of the bridge to the narrower end. This was kept secret from his father, Zora, for a very long time! The land along the river border below the bridge was also used for growing some crops. The cattle were free to roam around and used the area for a water source and a cooling area. Harold Crawford remembers three different cows falling over the bridge. Sometimes the Crawford boys had to bring the cattle in from the rocks for milking. Scout, the farm dog often brought the cows in by himself.

During the Great Depression, Zora Crawford tried using the rocks as a tourist attraction. He charged $.25 for a carload to drive through the pasture to park and then hike to the natural rock bridge. Zora soon realized that this idea was to be short lived. The flow of traffic through the pasture ended up causing more damage with ruts than any profits would compensate. A saw mill had previously been established along the stream above the rocks bridge near the returning trail. It milled out most of the original forest timber. Some of the trees were probably used as beams for the two farm barns. Harold commented that the lumbering ruined his squirrel-hunting woods as he sometimes hunted two times per day on the beech ridge above the rock bridge and rarely missed getting his bag limit of squirrels.