A Hidden GemBy: Adam Cook

Long before it became Zion Retreat & RV Park, coal mining cut open the land, cast it aside and wrote it off as worthless.

          Careful management, not wholesale reshaping, allowed it to heal. Today, that patience paid off: clear lakes, roaming wildlife and an uncommon quiet.

          “People tell us all the time they feel the difference as soon as they arrive,” said Sonya Logan, Zion’s director. “Once they experience that, they understand why we protect it the way we do.”

          Just outside Flushing in eastern Ohio, the campground sits within an easy drive of Barkcamp State Park.

          Spanning more than 1,300 acres, Zion pairs modern comforts — full-hookup RV sites, cabins, fishing lakes and quiet trails — with a rare sense of calm: no alcohol, no ATVs, no crowd-driven chaos.

          “What people notice first is the quiet,” said Jim Wagner, one of Zion’s founders who began acquiring the former mining land decades ago and helped establish the retreat in 2005. “That doesn’t happen by accident. We control how the land is used, how many people fish, how much is developed — all of it — because that’s the only way this place works.”

          More than 100 full-hookup sites provide modern essentials — 50-amp electric service, Wi-Fi, picnic tables and fire rings — with plenty of shade throughout the campground. Cabins range from lakefront simplicity to spacious lodges.

          “When we say full hookup, we mean city water and city sewer,” Wagner said.

Guests can swim, kayak or paddle rowboats on multiple ponds and the 27-acre main lake. A nearly 2-mile gravel trail loops through the property, connecting lakes, forests and wildlife viewing areas.

          Zion’s mission springs from honoring God’s creation, a purpose reflected quietly along a trail that blends nature and Scripture.

          The trail winds through forests and along the lakes, featuring biblical scenes designed for quiet reflection. Three crosses stand in reference to Calvary. A fourth rests on the ground inviting visitors to lift it — a physical reminder of the weight carried.

          “Off the trail, we have a Noah’s Ark that’s one-seventh the size of the biblical ark,” Wagner said. “It’s a playground for kids. We’re a Christian retreat, but we don’t give a test. We try to lead by example in what we’ve created here.”

          Scripture passages appear throughout the trail, including one verse left intentionally misattributed — a detail that often sends visitors reaching for their Bibles or smartphones to check chapter and verse.

“The peace you experience while visiting can’t be explained, it must be experienced,” Logan said. “People can walk it for the scenery, they can walk it for the stories, or they can just sit and be quiet.”

          Zion doesn’t ask visitors to believe anything in particular or do much at all. It simply offers space — to walk, to listen, to notice — and lets the land do the rest.

“We have to leave it better than we found it,” Wagner said. “If you do that, everything else takes care of itself.

Visit Zion Retreat & RV Park at 334 High St, Flushing, OH 43977        Check out their website at ZionRetreatRVPark.com or call 740-968-0955.