Scout camp celebrates 85th

Posted 8/15/12

TUSTEN, NY — For the 85th year of operation of the Ten Mile River Scout Camps (TMR), and the 15th year of the Ten Mile River Scout Camp Museum, the general public is invited to visit and explore …

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Scout camp celebrates 85th

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TUSTEN, NY — For the 85th year of operation of the Ten Mile River Scout Camps (TMR), and the 15th year of the Ten Mile River Scout Camp Museum, the general public is invited to visit and explore the camp’s history.

Ten Mile River Scout Camps occupy 12,000 acres in the towns of Tusten, Highland, Cochecton and Bethel. The property was originally purchased and organized by Franklin Roosevelt and others in the mid-1920s. When FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to employ out-of-work young men, he signed an executive order creating the only CCC camp on private property at Ten Mile River. The TMR Museum documents this history along with the history of Boy Scouting, especially in New York City. A nine-minute movie will be shown depicting how Roosevelt brought New York City Boy Scouts to Sullivan County, and an enormous collection of maps, pictures and documents relating to local towns, local history and the history of scouting are on display.

The museum includes an exhibit of Native American artifacts recovered from dig sites on the TMR reservation, an exhibit of 18th and 19th century farming and logging artifacts, and photographs and images of log rafts and life logging on the Delaware.

Among the historical figures documented is Margaret Soller, who from 1929 until 1972 opened her kitchen door to Boy Scouts and the general public as the Doughnut Farm. In a similar vein, local town tax collector Roland Flora and his wife Louise delighted scouts for 40 years skillfully carving neckerchief slides. The TMR Museum displays on loan a selection of over 200 of these slides.

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