The large opening between MacMillan and Patrick campsites, called the “MacMillan Parking Lot” for many years, started out as the camp tennis courts!  According to old records this space was cleared and leveled in the very early years of Camp Hinds, a task which must have required a lot of cutting of trees and removal of stumps, then grading the one hundred by one hundred-twenty foot rectangle.  On the Patrick side evidence of the leveling is clear, where the ground slopes up from the level site.

Clay was obtained and used to surface the area and there was plenty of room for two courts with “elbow room” between them.  We don’t know if the standard twelve foot fence surrounded this area, but without it there would have been a lot of lost balls in the surrounding woods.

In the fifties we used to hear Frank Bailey refer to the tennis courts, although most staff members didn’t know what he was talking about.  By that time this area was filled with cars every Sunday when parents drove as close to their boys’ campsites as they could get.
 

The lot has been used for various athletic activities including volleyball and basketball since parking of staff and visitor autos has been relegated to the field near Cadigan Lodge.

BALL FIELDS

Through the fifties softball games were a common evening activity in camp and two fields were then used for these games. The “First Field” was in the open area across from Cadigan Lodge and the “Second Field” in the space near the camp gate, in front of Bates Cabin.  Neither field had any improvements made to it, just the worn-in spots marking the bases. Around 1960 the southernmost part of first field is where we set up a large four-lane obstacle course, with a climbing wall, rope swing, tire run, fence crawl and hurdle to test the skill of competing scouts.  After a few years this course was dismantled.

The First Field was not as level then as it is now. That improvement was made in the eighties when there were efforts by the Camp Hinds Alumni Association to make a better athletic field out of it.  The association invested significant resources including hauling in many truck loads of stone dust.  When parking became an issue in the nineties, the council promised the association to build a new sports field in the MacMillan parking lot if they could move the parking lot to the Alumni sports field.  Although that area soon became a parking lot, the council did not build the promised sports field. The age of the automobile overcame the age of softball.