Built in 1903 by Judge J.H. Logan on the site of an old logging camp, Brookdale Lodge was first named the Minnehaha Hotel after a fictional Native American character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. It received its current name in 1924 after Dr. F. K. Camp purchased it. Its patrons included former presidents, famous mobsters, celebrities, movie stars, campers, and day-trippers from San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area, many arriving by train for a round-trip fare of $3.00. Especially in its heyday, the lodge offered well-appointed rooms, a dancehall, a spacious bar, the two-story Brook Room dining hall with Clear Creek running through its middle, the Mermaid Room with a large glass wall looking into the deep end of the built-in swimming pool, and a creekside wedding chapel favored by young couples. Over the years, the lodge endured two floods and five fires, both contributing to untimely deaths on the property that some believe left lingering souls behind. The wishing well beside the site was built by Dr. Camp and his wife to support crippled children, and many thousands of dollars thrown into it were turned over to the Shriners for their Crippled Children Fund.
