Sugar Grove, Ohio: First Taste of the Hills on US-33

Driving down US-33 from Columbus, Sugar Grove is where the flatland finally gives up — the first ridges rise, the road starts to bend, and a village of about 400 people marks the unofficial border of hill country. "Gateway to the Hocking Hills" is the town's own nickname, and it's earned: this is the last easy stop before the gorges, and the first place worth one of its own.

A canal town at the confluence

Sugar Grove sits where Rush Creek meets the Hocking River, in Berne Township — organized in 1805 and named by its Swiss settlers for Bern. Canal-era buildings and 19th-century storefronts still anchor the little downtown, and the maple trees that named the village still line it. It's a five-minute stop that rewards a slower one.

The Sugar Grove lineup

• Rhododendron Cove State Nature Preserve. The headliner. A stiff climb up sandstone cliffs to ridge-top views through one of Ohio's rare native rhododendron colonies — spectacular when the thickets bloom in late spring. Formerly permit-only, now open to the public; no pets, preserve rules apply.
• Sugar Grove Antiques. Housed in the historic 1918 Kull building just off Route 33 — vintage signs, Coca-Cola collectibles, records, postcards, and ephemera, open Friday through Sunday.
• Valley View Hills Winery. A winery on Klump Road with tastings, events like sip-and-paint nights, and its own one-bedroom couples cabins with hot tubs and fireplaces — a stay-where-you-sip option rare in the region.
• Flight of the Hawk Park. A Fairfield County park along US-33 whose landmark is impossible to miss: a steel red-tailed hawk sculpture standing over 40 feet tall by artist Ric Leichliter, with walking trails and native plantings below.
• Stars & Stripes Festival. The village's signature event, held in late June — small-town Americana at full strength.

Between Lancaster and Logan

Sugar Grove's position is its superpower: ten minutes south of Lancaster (the county seat's restaurants, the Sherman House Museum, the Lancaster Golf Club's Donald Ross-designed course) and fifteen from Logan and the park corridor. Rock Mill's covered bridge and 1824 grist mill — one of the last mill-and-bridge pairs in the nation — is a short detour northwest, covered in our covered bridges guide.