Among the items that will be on display today are:
- A "president's chair," carved out of hickory wood. Presidents James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt sat in the chair.
- A pen Roosevelt used to sign the guest book.
- A photograph of Ruth autographing two baseballs for a club member.
- An autographed picture of comedians Amos 'n' Andy.
- Letters of correspondence with President Theodore Roosevelt.
The club's members, which included Delaware industrialist Eugene DuPont and naturalist Richard K. Mellon, invited guests to hunt deer, turkey and pheasant.
The state leases 1,400 acres, including the club's lodge, to the Woodmont chapter of the Izaac Walton League, Young said. Under the arrangement, the league can use the land from Oct. 1 to March 31 for hunting and camping while the rest of the year the state uses the property for programs available to the public.
The property's history started after the Civil War when a group of people decided to purchase and preserve the land so members of the Woodmont Rod and Gun Club of Washington, D.C., could relax, hunt and fish.
The first clubhouse was built in 1872 but the structure and many of its records burned in 1903, Young said. The club split in 1903 over design of a new clubhouse and then dissolved.
In 1908, Henry Bridges, a Baltimore attorney born and raised in Hancock, organized a group of businessmen who bought the land and ran it under the name Woodmont Rod and Gun Club of Baltimore City.
A new clubhouse was built that year. It was later replaced by the three-story fieldstone structure used today.
