Part of the charm of the new gift shop at Hanging Rock State Park is the collection of shelves and cabinets used to display goods there. Each one is a work of art itself, depicting a native animal that lives in the park. Artist Brian Jarvis drew the designs and cut the metal using a plasma cutter then treated the panels with a torched look. (Submitted photo)

Shirts, hats, and all sorts of souvenir are available in the new Hanging Rock State Park gift shop — and the view out onto the park is pretty good, too. (Submitted photo)

Visitors to Hanging Rock State Park will now find it much easier to access the visitor’s desk, or ask questions of the front office staff, because shirts and hats and other items will no longer be sold at the front desk.

And for those wishing to buy a keepsake from their visit to the park, there is a nice new gift shop adorned with shirts, hats, art pieces, knick knacks, and assorted Hanging Rock items. The gift shop opened for business on June 17, after several weeks of work and several months of planning.

Park Superintendent Robin Riddlebarger said the gift shop was nearly a necessity, with large crowds often trying to use the information desk to purchase goods while others were simply there to ask a question.

“If you can imagine, people would come in the front door and just want to ask a question about a hiking trial, and they had to get in line behind people trying on shirts or trying to buy Gatorade,” she said.

That the front desk would be so busy should be no surprise. Two years ago, in 2020, the park smashed its old single-year visitor record, with 867,911 guests making their way through the state park, exceeding the previous year’s figure by more than 200,000.

“We thought 2020 was an anomaly,” she said, adding that she and others at the park suspected the COVID-19 lockdowns that year spurred people to seek outdoor nature venues for relaxation and enjoyment.

But, they were wrong. In 2021, 900,702 people visited the park. And this year, she said visitors numbers are nearly at the same pace. That explosive growth, she said, made the front visitor’s area a busy place, and pushed them to build the gift shop, using a former, underutilized classroom for the new effort.

The park only began selling items a few years ago.

“We had kind of toyed with the idea of selling stuff in the lobby over the past 10 years, but it’s been kind of in the last five years we’ve embraced it. People coming here want to take something home as a souvenir.”

Now, with the dedicated space for a gift shop, that will be easier.

Riddlebarger credits maintenance mechanics Tracey Goembel and Josh Hemric with getting the shop ready to open quickly. “There’s nothing park maintenance guys can’t do,” she said. One thing visitors will notice is even the shop itself is a work of art, thanks to some work by local artist Brian Jarvis. Riddlebarger said a chance viewing of some metal art at one of the booths at Just Plain Country Store in Walnut Cove, where Jarvis was displaying some work, got her office in touch with the artist. They asked if he could created some shelves, and Jarvis was glad to do it.

“He just went off to the races,” she said. “I just expected something simple and he created works of art. He created metal panels that we can use to hang magnets from, one of our top selling items. Each panel is a work of art depicting a native animal that lives in the park from, bass to bears. Brian drew the designs and cut the metal using a plasma cutter then treated the panels with a torched look. The new panels make a beautiful backdrop and are in keeping with the park’s rustic natural feel.”

She said The Friends Of Sauratown Mountains donated the funds for Jarvis’ work. (Jarvis can be reached at rbjmetalart@gmail.com for more information on his work).

“It’s something new for us, it’s awesome,” she said of the gift shop. Being new, she said the staff there will experiment a bit to determine when the best times are to have the shop open. For now, it is open every day from 9 a.m. until 4:45 p.m.

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