Field NotesOhio
Upper Falls in the Old Man's Cave gorge, Hocking Hills, with visitors on the rocks

An independent field guide · 365 places

The field guide to outdoor Ohio

Parks and forests, ancient mounds, caves, waterfalls and back roads, with the story behind each place and where to eat and fuel up nearby.
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  • 117parks & forests
  • 64ancient mounds
  • 34waterfalls
  • 40historic sites
  • 33road trips

Old Man's Cave, Hocking Hills · Photo: Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0

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State parks & forests117 places, with cabins, campsites and trails117 places Waterfalls34 falls, with trail notes34 falls Mounds & earthworks64 ancient sites, from Serpent Mound to Newark64 ancient sites Caves & caverns12 show caverns, recess caves and rock shelters12 caves Lake Erie beaches20 public beaches, Conneaut to Toledo20 beaches Historic sites40 places, from the frontier to the Civil War40 places Road trips33 drives, from the Lincoln Highway to the Morgan Heritage Trail33 drives Oddities19 giants, ghosts and folk-art stops19 roadside stops The Buckeye TrailA 1,444-mile loop, all 26 sections1,444 miles

New to the guide?

Six places to start

One from every corner of the state, each with its full story inside.

01Old Man's CaveHocking Hills · SoutheastA gorge of waterfalls and recess caves where a hermit is said to have lived, with the park's visitor center. 02Great Serpent MoundAdams County · SouthwestA gigantic earthen snake on a hilltop over Ohio Brush Creek, built by a people whose name is still argued over. 03Brandywine FallsCuyahoga Valley · NortheastThe tallest waterfall in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, reached by an easy boardwalk with an accessible upper overlook. 04Marblehead LighthouseMarblehead · Lake ErieThe oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes, lit since 1821, on nine acres of limestone shoreline. 05Zoar VillageTuscarawas County · EasternA well-preserved communal village founded by German separatists in 1817, on the Ohio & Erie Canal. 06Longaberger Basket BuildingNewark · CentralA seven-story office building shaped like a picnic basket, with handles that are heated in winter.

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Lake ErieWest Virginia36 places368 places813 places135 places523 places2321 places2124 places2416 places1613 places134 places418 places182 places217 places1710 places1014 places142 places27 places76 places613 places133 places34 places414 places143 places3Harrison Lake State Park2 places22 places22 places26 places64 places4

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Parks, forests & wildlife areas

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117 parks in 7 regions

SunWatch Indian Village

Dayton · Montgomery County · Southwest Ohio
A rebuilt Fort Ancient village on the Great Miami
National Historic LandmarkNational Register of Historic PlacesReconstructed village
Directions →Official source →

A rebuilt Fort Ancient farming village of thatched houses, gardens and a plaza, standing where archaeologists dug up the real one.

What it is
A Fort Ancient farming village rebuilt on the spot where it was excavated, with thatched houses, gardens and a central plaza
People
About 250 villagers who farmed corn, beans and squash and hunted along the Great Miami
Layout
A ring of houses around a plaza, inside a palisade
The sun posts
Posts in the plaza are believed to have tracked the sun and the seasons, which gave the site its modern name
Excavated
1971 to 1988, after the land was set aside for a sewage plant
Designations
National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark (1990)

The story

SunWatch is a Fort Ancient village on the west bank of the Great Miami River, just south of downtown Dayton. Around the 1100s about 250 people lived here for roughly 20 years in a ring of houses around an open plaza, inside a wooden palisade. They grew corn, beans and squash in the river bottoms and hunted deer and turkey. A cluster of posts in the plaza is believed to have worked as a calendar, catching the sun at key points in the year.

Amateur collectors found artifacts on the site in the 1960s. When the City of Dayton planned a sewage treatment plant here, professional salvage digging began in 1971, and what it found, a whole stockaded village, persuaded the city to save the land instead. Digging went on until 1988, the year SunWatch opened as an open-air museum with an interpretive center. Houses, gardens and part of the palisade have been rebuilt on their original posts. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1990.

Related sites

Visiting information you can trust

Content last reviewed
November 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
Primary official source
Official page
Location confidence
Verified property location
Located from the site's street address
Check current conditions
Official conditions or closures
Reservations or tickets
Tickets or admission info

Prices, hours, closures, campsite availability and trail conditions shown elsewhere on this page are not live — always confirm with the official source before you go.

The Village That Beat a Sewage Plant

The land by the river was meant for a sewage treatment plant. The salvage dig that came first kept finding more: post holes, storage pits, burials, and then the outline of a whole village, houses in a ring around a plaza with a wall around it all.

The plant was never built there. The village was rebuilt where it stood.

Behind the legend

The salvage digging of 1971, the city's decision to preserve the site and the long excavation to 1988 are recorded by the Dayton Society of Natural History and in the National Register history. The idea that the plaza posts tracked the sun comes from the archaeologists who studied the site; it is a strong interpretation, not something the villagers left in writing.

If you go

Go in November, when admission is free, or on a fall weekend. Walk the plaza and stand by the center posts, then look at the artifacts in the interpretive center.

Visiting

Status
Open weekends
Managed by
Dayton Society of Natural History
Hours
From September 1, open Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and closed weekdays. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Day and Easter. Check the website for spring and summer hours.
Admission
Adults $10, seniors 60+ and children 3 to 12 $8, 2 and under free, Dayton Society of Natural History members free. Admission is free all of November for Native American Heritage Month.
Phone
937-275-7431
Please note
Children under 16 must be with an adult. Stay on the paths and out of the reconstructed buildings unless they are open.
Address
2301 West River Road, Dayton, OH 45417
Official information →Directions

Parks nearby

Island MetroPark
About 5 miles · A downtown Dayton park where the Stillwater meets the Great Miami.
Open
Eastwood MetroPark
About 8 miles · A Mad River park with a big lake and trailside camping.
Open

Details last checked 2026-11-05. Confirm hours and prices before you go.

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