The northern (downstream) entrance is offset about 100 feet (30 m) to the east of the stream channel, which exits under some boulders, making a second (wet) avenue of egress.

The earliest recorded reference to the Sinks may be a November 1833 letter sent by Randolph County physician Benjamin Dolbeare to the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society in Richmond.

[5] The Sinks first came to widespread public notice by way of a tongue-in-cheek account of a pleasure expedition to the region published by David Hunter Strother in Harper's Magazine in 1872 and 1873,[6] although the visit upon which it is based probably occurred around 1854.

This semi-fictionalized narrative treated the locals in rather xenophobic terms and recounted a lurid tale of cattle rustling, abduction and desperate escape in the cave and the surrounding area.

It was also during this period that the West Virginia Highway Department began, with an eye toward the tourist potential, to replace the designation of "Osceola" with that of "The Sinks" on its official roadmaps.

A parking lot on Dry Fork Road (County Route 40) for the Sinks is located at 38°42′55.8″N 79°38′15.7″W / 38.715500°N 79.637694°W / 38.715500; -79.637694, with a trail to the upstream end starting nearby.

A combination of scrambling and wading is required to pass some stretches, however, and many a visitor cannot locate the dry, downstream entrance (about 200 feet (61 m) back and to the right from the wet stream exit) and is therefore compelled to return the way he came in.