Big Springs Area - 1911

"Scouting found its way to West Texas in 1911, the same year the program came to America. The frist Troop to be organized in this area was Troop 1 in Big Springs. The Troop chartered in September 1911, has had a continous registration since that time and is sponsored by the Big Spring Rotary Club. The leaders were B. Reagan and C.S. Holmes. Mr. Holmes was the second Council President.  For more information on Troop 1 go HERE.

Paul Terrell, a retired watchmaker, who lives in Sweetwater, was a member of the first troop organized in Colorado City. He still has all of his membership and merit badge cards. Those years were between 1912-14. Mr. Terrell was one of the first to become an Eagle Scout in this area.

Before the local Council was organized in 1923, all troops were on direct service from the National Council.

C.J. Dalton organized a troop in Rotan in 1911. Mr Dalton was a school teacher and later became County Superintendent, he is now retired and still lives in Rotan. He has some good pictures of early day scout camps, especially of the kids moving from waterhole to waterhole north of the Double Mountain area. The boys did all of the moving on foot.

The first Boy Scout Troop in Scurry County was sponsored by a Sunday School Teacher, Mrs. Nancy Caton, in the First Methodist Church in 1913. She had read about the Scout organization in England, and how it came to America in 1910, and thought a Troop would be a good thing for her class of boys. She designed a little Scout pin, similar to a picture she had seen. The Troop donated a stained glass window for the new church. Another Boy Scout Troop was organized in Snyder on March 13, 1914.

In 1914 H. A. Leverton, Principal of Midland Schools and later Mayor of the city, organized a Troop with 7 boys and established the first Boy Scout Camp in a popular wooded grove 4 miles west of Midland. These early day Troops creatd a vacuum that later pulled thousands of boys into the scouting program in this West Texas area."