A.M. Drake and his wife Florence camped on the bank of the Deschutes River in June 1900, drawn by the 1894 Federal Carey Act, which encouraged private enterprise to reclaim and develop desert land by building irrigation systems and infrastructure in a desolate area. Drake ordered the construction of a hunting-style log lodge and decorated it with exotic Oriental rugs and Chinese lanterns. The lodge was torn down in 1956. In 1966, an editorial in The Bend Bulletin lamented the loss, saying that if the Drake lodge had been preserved, it would have been a landmark in the Bend of the present.