| In the early
day of camp the open part of the field became the archery range for Frank
Bailey’s afternoon classes as well as the athletic area for Spud Nason’s
groups taking Athletics and Personal Fitness Merit Badges. A sawdust-filled
jumping pit was created below the Boone pump house and below that, just
to the left in the woods, was a pit used as a burning dump. Every day the
troops would transport the burnable trash from kitchen and campsites to
this spot in two trek carts (two-wheeled wagons), where it would be burned.
According to Anna Collins, who was the long-time owner of our neighboring Camp Kokatosi (now Kingley Pines), this open area, which she knew as Ephraim Jordan’s pasture, once extended through all of what is now Ridgway campsite, and to the stone wall seen on the east side. When she walked this area in the sixties she was amazed to see how the landscape had changed and didn’t recognize it at all. The tall pines in Ridgway had sprouted up as “pasture pines” once the field was abandoned, filling that space in so thickly that by 1952 it presented a solid wall of pine, a great place for stalking games, since no Scout could see further ahead than his extended arm. The field was used as a scoutcraft
instruction area in the 1980s when the adjoining campsite (now West) was
the Scoutcraft area.
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1986 |
1986 |
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Dean B. Zaharis Created: October 3, 2010 Last Update: April 3, 2011 Send comments to: FriendsOfHinds@gmail.com |