Smith Rock is the traditional homeland of the Tenino (Warm Springs) and the Northern Paiute people. The Northern Paiutes referred to the area as the Animal Village, referring to the abundance and variety of both animal and plant life that inhabited the area.
The Crooked River is this area’s water source, an important tributary and one of the few that feeds the Deschutes River from the east. It flows through the Crooked River caldera, a 26-mile long, 17-mile wide volcanic depression formed through a series of super-volcanic eruptions between 29 and 27 million years ago. Smith Rock Park sits on the northern edge of this caldera, massive volumes of volcanic tuff and rhyolitic lava deposits exposed in the walls of the park.
Smith Rock joined the Oregon State Park system in 1960.
1957 Oregon Passage and 1997 The Postman were both blockbuster movies filmed at Smith Rock.