As early as the Stone Age, there is evidence of human habitation in the Buchenloch, a nearby cave.

In the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville, Gerolstein, along with all of the area on the left bank of the Rhine river, was given to France, and wasn't returned to German control until 1815.

As a landholder, Count Sternberg-Manderscheid acquired the holdings formerly belonging to the monasteries at Weissenau and Schussenried in Upper Swabia in the 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, among other things, to offset his loss of Blankenheim, Jünkerath, Gerolstein and Dollendorf.

Late in the Second World War, in both 1944 and 1945, Gerolstein's status as a railway junction-town brought Allied air raids down on the town, and 80% of it was destroyed.

Bewingen is Gerolstein's northernmost outlying centre, or Stadtteil, located three kilometres (about 1.86 miles) from the town center.

Here, the Kyll river flows in a great arc around the mighty dolomite and basalt massif that juts out from the west, eastwards.

The road finds its way to Gerolstein over the Bewinger Höhe (heights), thus shortening the way to the nearby middle centre.

From that mention it is known that the Brothers Theoderich, Alexander, and Albero, from Castle Kerpen, established an endowment for the Premonstratensian nuns in the years between 1162 and 1175.

The next documentary mention came in 1282, when "Gerhard VI of Blankenheim" acquired the land, as well as Steffeln, Niederbettingen, and Bewingen.

One of the oldest buildings is the small chapel consecrated to Saint Brice, which underwent repairs in 1744 and 1745.

The town's coat of arms consists of a lion rampant sable (black and standing on the left hind foot) armed and langued gules (red tongue, teeth, and claws viable) surmounted at the shoulder by a label of five points of the last.

The German army (Bundeswehr) Eifel barracks (Eifelkaserne) house the 281st headquarters support battalion (Führungsunterstützungsbataillon 281).

In walking distance is the Gerolsteiner Dolomiten, a Devonian limestone reef formed by extinct Rugosa, Tabulata, and Stromatoporoids, comprising the Hustley, the Munterley, and the Auber, which dominate the surrounding landscape, looming 100 meters above the valley.

In Les Mystères de Paris, by French author Eugene Sue, the main protagonist, Rodolph, is the Grand Duke of Gerolstein.