| When the camp
kitchen and dining hall were located in the center of camp, ice was used
for keeping the perishable foods cold. Ice boxes were a common household
appliance in the twenties and thirties. The ice used at camp was
harvested in Panther Pond in mid-winter, hauled up the bank in large blocks,
and stored in the camp ice house, a small building located back in a shady
area of the woods. The ice house, about 12’ x 14’ in size, had double
walls filled with sawdust for insulation, a dirt floor, and was filled
with tightly-packed blocks of ice covered with more sawdust. The
ice lasted all summer and could be taken out block by block and hauled
to the coolers in the camp kitchen.
When electric refrigeration came to the new dining hall, the building was used as a storage area for camp tools and equipment and the second floor, with an outside staircase, became staff quarters. At this time it was called the Maintenance Building, or simply “Maintenance.” A metal framed three-sided structure known as the "cabana" stood next to the Maintenance building and was a storage area for lumber and such. After the old craftshop (original kitchen/dining hall) was torn down in 1952, a concrete slab was poured in the maintenance building and it became Frank Bailey’s craftshop center, with power tools and craft supply lockers. Frank Bailey and Clyde Nason operated the craftshop program with a large with a 16' x 32' army tent pitched in the area in front of this building until 1956, when the new craftshop was built. Over the years the upstairs was used for an Order of the Arrow prop storage area and for a time a museum. After the new maintentance and storage building was built behind the training center 1986, the building was used for Scoutcraft storage. Finally "Maintenance" was torn down in 1988 because it had become unsafe. Only the slab remains, near the Scoutcraft area. For a while an old staff cabin know
as "Half-way house" was moved to the slab for the scoutcraft area to use
as a storage area. That has been since replaced by a trailer located
nearby.
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seen above the Scoutcraft tarp in this 1974 picture |
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Dean B. Zaharis Created: October 30, 2010 Last Update: November 16, 2010 Send comments to: FriendsOfHinds@gmail.com |