Hanging Rock State Park

Hanging Rock State Park is an over 9000-acre North Carolina state park located in Sauratown Mountains, Stokes County, North Carolina. The lake is a popular destination for the region, including Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.  

Hanging Rock State Park

The park is 30 miles north of Winston-Salem and approximately 2 miles from Danbury in Stokes County. 

Hanging Rock State Park location on Google Maps

The Sauratown Mountains are one of the most easterly mountain ranges in North Carolina. They are often called “the mountains away from the mountains,” because they are separated from the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. Prominent peaks in the Sauratown range rise from 1,700 feet to over 2,500 feet in elevation and stand in bold contrast to the surrounding countryside, which averages only 800 feet in elevation. The park is named for one of its prominent topographic features, Hanging Rock, which offers a view across the valley of the Dan River to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. 

The Sauratown Mountains are the remnants of a once mighty range of peaks that were worn down over millions of years by wind, water, and other forces. What remains of these ancient mountains is due to erosion-resistant quartzite, which now supports the scenic ridges of Moore’s Knob, Cook’s Wall, and Hanging Rock.

Two Native American tribes inhabited this area during the same period, the Saura in Stokes County and the Cherokee in Surry County. The Sauratown Mountains were named after the Saura people. They were a peaceful tribe that had several village sites along the Dan River; evidence indicates habitation as far back as AD 1000. Around 1710, the Sauras moved south to eventually join the Catawbas near the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. By the time of the American Revolution, the Saura population had been significantly reduced by smallpox epidemics. There are a few individuals in Stokes County who claim ancestry today.

The first European settlers to enter what is presently Stokes County traveled from Pennsylvania and Virginia along the “Great Wagon Road” and settled in the rich bottomland of the Town Fork Creek area. These settlements were well established prior to 1752 when Moravians entered the area and established dwellings along Town Fork Creek from the Dan River to an area west of present-day Germantown.

British troops did not appear in the Stokes County area until late in the Revolutionary War, but there were conflicts with Tories, as a popular legend indicates. Reportedly, a section of the park called Tory's Den was so named when a group of Tories captured the daughter of a local member of the Whig party and held her captive in a cave to gain aid for their cause.

In the early 1930s, the land where the park is located was owned by developers intent on creating a mountain resort on its highest summit. The plans fell through when the developers went bankrupt during the initial construction. 

During this time, there was considerable enthusiasm for the creation of a state park at Hanging Rock. The Stokes County Committee for Hanging Rock State Park, a citizen group, joined forces with the Winston-Salem Foundation and, on April 20, 1936, the Stokes County Committee for Hanging Rock State Park deeded a gift of more than 3,000 acres in the Sauratown Mountains to the state of North Carolina for the establishment of a state park. 

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt began the first relief agency, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), to provide jobs through the development of public property. In 1935, the CCC began work at what was to become Hanging Rock State Park.

CCC activity continued in the park during the early 1940s. During this period a number of projects were completed.

Between 1935 and 1942, the CCCs built the original facilities you see today. In 1942, during the early days of the Second World War, the CCC was abolished, however, most of the park's goals had been attained by this time. During the war, work at the park slowed dramatically but, on July 21, 1944, the park formally opened.

Additional land acquisitions in the 1970s added to the park’s acreage, the Lower Cascades, a spectacular 40-foot waterfall, and the aforementioned, Tory's Den. In 2000, another large land purchase added Flat Shoals Mountain, a smaller summit visible from the top of Hanging Rock, to the park’s acreage.

Part of the CCC project was constructing a 12-acre lake and bathhouse, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. 

I've hiked and jogged on most of the trails and swam in the cold mountain lake numerous times.