'' XLV (June 1872), 30.) Evidence suggests that the
Native Americans of the
Archaic Period may have camped frequently at the mouth of nearby
Seneca Creek at the foot of the Rocks. The famous
Great Indian Warpath, known locally as the "Seneca Trail", followed the
Potomac River, allowing the
Algonquian,
Tuscarora, and
Seneca nations to transit the area for purposes of trade and war. Excavation for the building of the present Seneca Rocks Visitor Center uncovered evidence of two villages, the more recent of which thrived about 700 years ago. About a dozen dwellings were found. The first
European visitors to see the region were surveyors who
passed through around 1746, and the first settlers arrived at Mouth of Seneca fifteen years later. At that time, West Virginia (or western
Virginia as it was then) was at the edge of the great wilderness. The Rocks were visited and sketched by the well-known writer and
magazine illustrator David Hunter Strother (known by his pseudonym "Porte Crayon") around 1853. His sketches were reworked and published two decades later as a popular wood engraving in an 1872 issue of ''
Harper's New Monthly Magazine''. (see image left). It is unknown who the first person was to climb Seneca Rocks. Undoubtedly Native Americans scaled the rocks before European settlers reaching the area, but there is no record of their ascents. The historic ascent of
Paul Bradt,
Don Hubbard, and
Sam Moore in 1939 found an inscription of "D.B. September 16, 1908." This has been attributed to a surveyor named Bittenger who was known to be working in the area. The documented climbing history of the Rocks begins in 1935 with a roped descent - the ascent was a steep hike – of the North Peak by Paul Bradt and Florence Perry. They left behind an estimated 75,000 soft iron
pitons, some of which can still be found on the rocks, and which inspired one of the faces to be named "The Face of a Thousand Pitons". Many of those pitons were retrieved and reused by local climbers in the following years, but many remained in the rock for decades. The
Spruce Knob–Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area (NRA) was established within the Monongahela National Forest by an act of the
U.S. Congress on September 28, 1965. The Rocks themselves were purchased by the federal government in 1969 from the heirs of D. C. Harper. The original visitor center was opened in 1978 and constructed on a grant of $297,000. A 1985 flood severely damaged the facility. On October 22, 1987, "the
Gendarme", an isolated and prominent pinnacle of the Rocks, fell to the ground. On May 26, 1992, the visitor center was destroyed by arson. The current visitor center — known as the Seneca Rocks Discovery Center — was completed in the fall of 1998 on a 5 million dollar grant. The "Seneca Rock" turnpoint at has been used by
glider pilots for
gliding competitions and
soaring awards because its distinctive appearance in aerial photographs made it suitable for photo documentation of the flight performance. This turnpoint was used on many 500-kilometer out-and-return course flights from
Ridge Soaring Gliderport in
Julian, Pennsylvania, including an October 15, 1995, flight by
Canadian pilot Walter Weir that was recognized as a world record at the time. ==Rock climbing==