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| Historic Harding Cabin Once a presidential retreat, The Harding Cabin at Deer Creek State Park is now restored and available for rental for our guests. United States Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty constructed the one and a half story cabin, known as the 'shack,' at the close of World War I on the banks of Deer Creek. |
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| Intrigue at Sweetbriar Ridge Daugherty was the strategist for Warren G. Harding during his state and national political campaigns and a cabinet member while the Marion newspaper publisher was President. Harding was elected state senator (1899-1902), lieutenant governor (1904-1905), and U.S. Senator (1915-1921), before being elected President (1921-1923). The cabin on Sweetbriar Ridge was reported to be favorite retreat for Harding and his close friends, known in Washington as the 'Ohio Gang' or 'Us Boys.' In addition, the hospitality of the cabin was reported to be extended to supporters of the administration and those who wished to do business with it. |
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| Much less is known about what actually transpired at the Harding Cabin than at another Ohio Gang gathering place known as the 'Little Green House on K Street' in the Nation's capital. That rented house was reported to be the business headquarters of the Ohio Gang in addition to administration personages. |
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| The Harding Cabin popped into the national limelight as a hideout after scandals were uncovered during and after Harding's presidential term. Perhaps the most well known of the scandals led to the conviction of Harding's secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall, on charges of accepting bribes in connection with leasing of federal oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. The 29th President, whose personal integrity was not questioned, died August 2, 1923 in San Francisco while on a transcontinental tour. A Continuing Enigma Was the cabin at Deer Creek a center for political intrigue or merely a refuge for governmental officials and their friends to get away from the pressing affairs of state? Perhaps we will never know for sure. The last person ever known to have talked about the activities at the Harding Cabin and the house on K Street died in 1973. |
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| Mrs. Roxy Stinson Brast, ex-wife of Jess Smith, another Washington Court House native and member of the Ohio Gang, testified before a U.S. Senate committee in 1924 about clandestine meetings and deals at the cabin and the K Street home. Daugherty, who lived until 1941, denied her allegations. However, he refused to testify before the senate committee. The attorney general, who resigned in 1924 at the request of President Calvin Coolidge, was never proven guilty of any wrongdoing. | 
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| In her later years, Mrs. Brast declined to talk to reporters or historians about her experiences. If she had knowledge of any secrets of the Ohio Gang, that knowledge apparently died with her. The Rhodes administration decided in 1966 to renovate the old cabin, but the project never started. |
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| A New Beginning The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) began renovating the structure in the fall of 1972 to save it from being razed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The renovation included new cedar siding on the outside walls, cedar shingles for the roof and insulation to make the cabin ready for winter. |
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| The Corps constructed a dam on Deer Creek between 1965 and 1968 as a flood control project and later cooperated with DNR on recreational facilities. In 1968, the dam was completed, creating Deer Creek’s 1,277-acre lake. The park was officially opened in 1974. |
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| For more about Deer Creek, visit the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. |
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