Within the mid-1800s, Robert Lee Hill found that the world of western Maryland close to Sideling Hill Creek was stuffed with deer, turkey, and different sport animals, in addition to ample fishing. Throughout an opportunity encounter with Rear Admiral Robley Evans in Washington, D.C., Hill spoke concerning the space and its considerable wildlife. Evans and his buddies took him up on a proposal to affix him for some autumn searching, and shortly after, the Woodmont Rod and Gun Membership of Washington was based.
The unique lodge burned down in 1903, and just a few artifacts survived, together with the famed Presidents' Chair. The membership members have been divided about methods to proceed after the hearth, and in the end the three,500 acres have been bought to Henry Bridges, who re-established the membership because the Woodmont Rod and Gun Membership of Baltimore.
Beneath Bridges' management as secretary-treasurer, the present three-story fieldhouse was constructed. Bridges was additionally deeply thinking about conservation applications after witnessing the extinction of the passenger pigeon firsthand. He established wild turkey breeding applications and imported white-tailed deer from Michigan to breed with the smaller native inhabitants. Artifical lakes have been designed and stocked with bass and trout when air pollution within the Potomac River made fishing there much less fascinating.
Bridges' final imaginative and prescient was a self-sustaining sport protect. Since his passing in 1957, others have carried on his legacy, increasing the conservation applications to incorporate pheasants and different animals.
Through the years, many outstanding figures have visited the lodge, together with six U.S. Presidents, Amos and Andy, Babe Ruth, and Chief Justice William Douglas. Presidents James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and Grover Cleveland visited the unique Washington membership earlier than it burned down. Cleveland's love of the world—however not the lodge itself—led to the creation of close by “Camp Cleveland.” As soon as Henry Bridges rejuvenated the membership, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt additionally visited the lodge.
In 1995, the Maryland Division of Pure Sources, along side the Izaak Walton League, bought the previous Rod and Gun Membership land. It's now co-managed by the 2 entities: the Maryland DNR oversees the lodge's speedy 1,400 acres (together with close by Camp Cleveland) from April by way of September, and the IWL (Woodmont Chapter) manages the positioning throughout searching season (October by way of March). The extra 2,000 acres of the Woodmont Pure Sources Administration Space are open to the general public year-round for mountaineering and wildlife viewing.
