The Council Lodge at Camp Miakonda was built in 1934 as a W. P. A. project by the federal government and became the camp’s most famous and most unique building, believed to be one of a kind in the country. Designed by Great Depression era architect Paul Robinette, who also designed five Spanish Colonial-style Toledo Zoo buildings of the same period, it is eight-sided, more than four stories high, sixty feet in diameter, and exactly 52 feet tall from the floor to the tip of the weather vane on its vented cupola. Built with a wood beam frame and custom-made lighting fixtures created by artisans of the Great Depression era, it was originally designed to allow indoor open-air campfires, with a power vacuum fan to draw smoke out of the building. Around the top exterior of its eight walls are tablets cast with Scouting awards and merit badges from that era, two on each wall for a total of sixteen. After deteriorating over the years, the building was completely renovated in 1996 and restored to its original grandeur. Camp Miakonda’s development during the Great Depression was driven by Raymond S. Loftus, Toledo Council Scout Executive from September 1925 through September 1937. Born in Detroit and raised in Toledo, he joined Scouting in Toledo after his Army discharge at the end of World War I, became Assistant Toledo Council Executive in 1919 under J. St. Clair Mendenhall, then served as Council Executive at Logansport, Indiana, and Milwaukee before returning to Toledo in 1925. He was the visionary and organizational force behind everything that took place at Camp Miakonda from 1925 to 1937, when it reached unparalleled heights among Scout camps in the nation. A longtime member of the Toledo Rotary Club, he attended every meeting for 35 years and served as secretary-treasurer from 1930 until his death. After his death, a large Toledo Rotary donation to the Pioneer Scout Reservation development fund was made in his name, and the reservation headquarters at P.S.R. was named for him. He died at age 70 in 1964.