Little Rock City, located in Little Valley, NY, is one of Western New York’s Secret Places named by the late Bruce Kershner’s book by the same name. Little Rock city is a “seemingly unending labyrinth of odd blocks of colossal rocks, lined up like buildings.” Little Rock City gets its name from the arrangement of rock formations which resemble a planned city like New York City. The giant, rectangular rocks form streets, alleys and buildings and are named after famous New York City ways such as Wallstreet, Broadway and Rockefeller Plaza. See the map below.

Along with the interesting rock formation, Little Rock City has some unique features noted in the book. The Inscription Grotto (#7) has historic carvings dating back to the 1800’s. The oldest noted in the book are “J.D. June 30, 1861” and “Moall 1861”. Another interesting set of features are the trees. You can see trees seemingly growing out of the rocks with roots enveloping them to reach the soil. Stilt Tree (#4) is one such hemlock tree that stands on two large roots.

In fact, all of the rock cities in NY, Pennsylvania and Ohio were formed by this process. They all lie just south of where the Ice Age glaciers stopped and retreated 12,000 year ago. Had the glaciers continued, the area would have been “obliterated” and would have looked much like parts of NY just north.

When visiting, be sure to bring boots and an extra pair of shoes for after the hike. The alleys are muddy even during the dry summer months. And as the author suggests, bring a plastic supermarket bag and pick up any litter you find. Remember to Leave No Trace.

I LOVE this place. I have taken my kids, my grandkids and many friends there! My kids have even taken friends there as adults.
Great hike! Kershner was a teacher of mine through SUNY at Buffalo. Each class was at a different location, some of which were the places like this one in his book. Great guy and a wonderful field guide when educating people about the outdoors.