Smoke Hole Canyon is a remote twenty-mile gorge carved by the South Branch Potomac River through eastern West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains, prized for its dramatic cliffs, caves, springs, and unusual geology formed by ancient stream capture. Part of the Spruce Knob–Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area since 1965, it also supports exceptional biodiversity, including habitat for the endangered Virginia big-eared bat. Settled in the late 1740s and 1750s by families living through farming, hunting, and fishing, the isolated canyon later supplied saltpeter for gunpowder, saw Civil War-era partisan violence, and became known in the early twentieth century for moonshining. Today it remains valued for seclusion and rugged natural beauty.