Tar Hollow State Forest is a protected forest in southeastern Ohio spanning Hocking, Ross, and Vinton counties and forming part of a larger conserved area with Tar Hollow State Park. It emerged from the Ross-Hocking Land Utilization Project of the 1930s, which aimed to relocate families to more productive land. After the project ended, the land was leased to Ohio’s Division of Forestry and later transferred to the state in 1958. Today, at 16,120 acres, it is Ohio’s third largest state forest, significant both for its size and as a legacy of Depression-era land-use reform and woodland conservation.