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Ben Ruggles Saved Canadohta Lake from Becoming a Private Lake
In the early 1900’s, a group of 40 men who called
themselves the Canadohta Club, made millions in the
oil business in Titusville.
They bought all the land around Canadohta Lake
hoping to make it a privately-owned lake for their club.
There was one parcel owned by Ben Ruggles and a few of his partners that they could not buy. Ben and his partners kept this parcel in an effort to keep the lake from going private.
The Ruggles parcel gave the public access to the lake
without going over the club property.
Ruggles was arrested several times on the lake by an armed patrol that was hired by the club to keep out trespassers.
The club built a small dam where Oil Creek flows from the
lake and claimed that Canadohta was man-made.
Local residents bombed the dam and peppered the patrol boats with buckshot. Ruggles was arrested again and when the case went to court, he convinced the Crawford County Court Judges that the lake had been there long before the club built the dam.
His proof was producing the photograph (above) of the steamboat that had been taken many years before the club came into existence.
In 1923 the judge ordered that the lake be
“Held in Trust by the Commonwealth For the People
and Cannot be Closed.”
~Thank you Mr. Ben Ruggles!
New Signage
New Home
'Canadohta Lake Breezes Forever' Dodie Randa, Local Author
1952 Framed Map of Canadohta Lake
Canadohta Bench, Bill Steuernagel
Crawford Gives Participant
Digitizing Historical Documents
Ann Bergheim
Debbie Corliss Prichard
Judy Amon
Mitzi Beckwith
Pam Ashoff Roberts
Richard Shaw
Missing from photo:
Kym Ashoff Miller and
Molly Miller Shreve