 Along with providing a nightly stopover, the Rock House was used as a tollhouse until the late 1850s, as wagon roads during this period were often contracted out to local operators.The construction of the Bon Air Hotel atop the Plateau a few miles to the east in the 1840s no doubt brought increased traffic to the Rock House, although the hotel was destroyed during the U.S. Civil War.In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the Rock House was used variously as a residence and a school, known simply as the "Rock House School."