Historic Events at the Lake

1781: Benjamin Harvey Discovers the Lake

The extraordinary story of the discovery of Harvey's Lake is now near-legend. Captured during the Revolutionary War and then released, Benjamin Harvey chanced on the Lake while trying to find his way back home from Fort Niagara.

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1912: Teddy Roosevelt
at the Hotel Oneonta

The Hotel Oneonta's most famous visitor was President Theodore Roosevelt, who attended a banquet in honor of his friend Rev. John J. Curran in August 1912. Father Curran was an outspoken advocate of miners' rights and a campaigner for the temperance movement. Roosevelt at the time was running for President as a Bull Moose candidate.

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1931: Tarzan
Visits Sandy Beach

Long before Larry Hagman, Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimming champ and, later, iconic movie Tarzan, was a spokesman for BVDs.

In 1931, Weissmuller performed a swimming exhibition at Sandy Beach as part of a BVD national tour to show off the company's new swimsuit line that he helped design.

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