Shawnee State Forest, also known as "Ohio's Little Smokies", is a

state forest A state forest or national forest is a forest that is administered or protected by some agency of a sovereign or federated state, or territory. Background The precise application of the terms vary by jurisdiction. For example: * In Australia, a ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. It is located in western

Scioto County Scioto County is a county located along the Ohio River in the south central region of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 74,008. Its county seat is Portsmouth. The county was founded March 24, 1804, from Adams ...

and eastern Adams County and encompasses of woodland. It is the largest state forest in Ohio. As with many government owned forests, some parts of Shawnee are actively managed through logging and other activities. However, approximately of the forest is designated as wilderness, with no roads or logging allowed. The Forest surrounds Shawnee State Park and contains

inholding An inholding is privately owned land inside the boundary of a national park, national forest, state park, or similar publicly owned, protected area. In-holdings result from private ownership of lands predating the designation of the park or fores ...

s as well.

History

Shawnee State Forest was established in 1922 with the purchase of 5,000 acres of land that was previously cut over for timber. Before its establishment, during the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, building stone was quarried in the area. The stone was moved by railroad to the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

, where it was loaded on barges. Most of the stone was used for the construction of buildings in Cincinnati. In the 1930s, seven Civilian Conservation Corps camps were located throughout the state forest. During this time, most of the roads were constructed, and five small lakes were built to serve as water supplies to the camps. The CCC Camps included four segregated African American camps—Camp Adams on Churn Creek; Camp Roosevelt and Camp Gordon on Turkey Creek; and Shawnee No. 2, which was located in the headwaters of Pond Creek, at the intersection of State Forest Road 1 and State Forest Road 4."The Three-Cs in Shawnee,
Scioto Historical
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References

Ohio state forests Protected areas of Scioto County, Ohio {{SciotoCountyOH-geo-stub