Lewis-Clark Area Council

Scouting in Washington has a long history, from the 1910s to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs that suit the environment in which they live.

Camp Black Mountain, located on the beautiful shores of Silver Lake an hour drive east of Bellingham, is the oldest existing camp in Washington State. Interviews with Hugh Eldridge Carr and General Floyd Hansen, Bellingham Eagle Scouts from the early 1920s, indicate the camp was active prior to 1919. The land was used by permission of owner H. P. Jukes (the council treasurer) prior to transferring ownership to the BSA in 1927. It was originally used by the Bellingham Council as Camp H. P. Jukes and has been in continuous use since that time with the exception of two seasons during WWII (1943 and 1944). Upon first use the camp was used for troop and district events, but became a fully organized resort in 1925. During the 1920s, the camp was supported by the Order of the Blue Knot, an honor camper's society that later became Quilshan Lodge, Order of the Arrow. Programs from the 1925 and 1926 seasons provide insight into early camp activities and vintage photographs of this cherished property.

In 1910, a Spokane, Washington Boy Scout leader, the Reverend David Ferry, created a troop under the name of Girl Guides of America. The Girl Guides did not expand much beyond the local area. In 1911, the Girl Scouts of America (Des Moines, Iowa and to be confused with the current Girl Scouts of the USA) and the Girl Guides planned to merge with the Camp Fire Girls to form the Girl Pioneers of America, but relationships fractured and the merger failed.

Founded in 1919, Camp Parsons is the oldest continuous running Boy Scout camp west of the Mississippi River and one of the oldest continually running Boy Scout camp in the United States on its original location. It sits on Jackson Cove, part of the Hood Canal, on the Olympic Peninsula, just north of Brinnon, Washington, and just south of Quilcene, Washington. The original land for the camp was donated by Reginald Parsons in 1918. Thousands of Boy Scouts come to Camp Parsons every summer.

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