A century of scouting: Bisbee's Troop 1 turns 100

BISBEE — Bisbee’s Troop 1 is like any of the hundreds of Boy Scouts of America troops across the state. The members go camping, plan service projects and earn merit badges.

But what sets Bisbee’s troop apart is they’ve been doing it for 100 years and were doing it before all the others — at least officially.

Bisbee’s troop — the first formed and the last of seven that once existed in the community — is celebrating this month the 100th anniversary of receiving its charter through the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1918.

On official paperwork with the BSA the troop’s number is 401, the result of a regional reorganization years ago, but in 2008, the troop committee voted to use the original number of Troop 1.

Kerry Feldman, the troop’s scoutmaster for the past 20 years, says he once heard a story about the group’s chartering from Richard Cooksley, a long-time Scout supporter who has since passed away.

According to this story — and Feldman admits he has no idea how true it is — a group in Bisbee heard the BSA was sending a team to the Southwest to charter troops. This group found out what train the delegation would be on, armed themselves with guns and rode out to where the railroad tracks crossed the state line. They then stopped the train and forced the engineer to divert to Bisbee. At the station, the delegation from the BSA was then similarly induced to charter the state’s first troop.

For the first couple years, before other troops in Arizona were similarly chartered, the group was dubbed “The Lone Troop.”

The title of “first troop,” however, comes with caveats. Prescott claims to have the first troop set up in 1911, with other scouts organizations in Phoenix and Tucson popping up shortly afterward, something confirmed by both the Arizona Scouting Museum and the BSA Catalina Council, which oversees troops in southern Arizona.

Feldman doesn’t dispute that, but contends Bisbee is the first officially chartered by the BSA. After the BSA was founded in 1910, unofficial “Scout troops” cropped up across the country without being officially recognized, according to information from the Arizona Scouting Museum.

Bisbee itself started as one of these unofficial Scout units, as evidenced by a 1917 photograph of a group of “Scouts” raising a flag on Buckey O’Neill Hill.

The Community Church of Warren has been acting as the troops’ sponsoring organization since 1929. Thanks to some diligent record-keeping, Feldman has the names and years served by the 36 scoutmasters who preceded him. He also has a couple old roster books, along with a collection of newspaper clippings, historical photos and even old uniforms from the troop’s past.

Many former Scouts, most of which have passed on, have shared memories with Feldman. One of his favorites include the old Scouts who recalled Phelps-Dodge lending the troop a three-ton truck. Scouts and their gear would be thrown in the back and the troop would drive all over the state, including the Grand Canyon.

One of those still living is Jack Ladd. Ladd, now 91, became a Scout at the age of 12 in 1938 and would earn his Eagle — the highest rank in scouting — in 1941. The troop met in the church for a time, but also met on the property where city hall now stands in a vacant mining building.

The highlight of being a Scout, for Ladd, was going to Scout camp at Camp Victorio in the Chiricahuas for two weeks and meeting with Scouts from Fort Huachuca, Tombstone, Douglas and Willcox.

“I can look back and truthfully say that I had the most lasting friendships with my fellow Scouts,” he said.

In that respect, he doesn’t believe Scouting has changed much in the interceding seven decades. Boys still like going out, hiking and camping, Ladd said.

Bob Watkins was a member of the troop during World War II. In 2009, shortly before his death, he wrote down a few memories that were passed on to Feldman.

On one overnight campout to Dixie Canyon, east of the Mule Mountains, the adventurous scouts came across a cave with some dynamite sticks. The boys decided they had to take them and elected Watkins to put them in his pack. Amazingly, he made it home safely and there was never any issues, even after he put them in his garage and forgot about them, Watkins wrote.

He also wrote about attending Scout camp in the Chiricahuas, where new Scouts would be initiated by being blindfolded, marched to a nearby waterfall, soaked and then return to a sleeping bag full of pine needles and pine cones.

Watkins also recalled attending a scout jamboree on Fort Huachuca where a good number of troops came out to hold contests on wilderness survival skills.

At the end of the letter, he said he made it to the rank of Life Scout and confesses that he didn’t advance further because at that point he and the others discovered “sports and girls.”

“I Just Couldn’i Rsisr”

I’ll do you one better.

We ran the little Girl Scout off our porch yesterday when she (and her mom) came selling cookies.

Wasp spray is very effective.

I will have nothing to do with any Scouting every again. Another fine American institution sold out to Leftism.

Former Life scout.

3 posted on 01/17/2018 6:30:55 AM PST by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)

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