Camp Cohn

In 1918 the Scouts of Toledo held their fourth consecutive summer camp on private property at Vineyard Lake near Brooklyn and Onsted, Michigan. As in the three previous years the camp was named for a prominent Scout Leader. In this instance the leader was Judge A. Cohn.

The 1918 camp appears to have been extremely elaborate for the time and place. A raft was built and placed in the lake for swimming, an office building was constructed from scratch, a canvas covered frame residence with screens was created for the wife of the scout executive, her two young daughters and the camp secretary, a shower system, an electrical system and a telephone system were installed. All of this was undertaken for a camp that only lasted two weeks and was done largely by a small staff of late teen, perhaps early twenties staff members.

The photographs come from the personal scrap book of J. St.Clair Mendenhall, the then Scout Executive in the Council. The scrapbook, which has photographs from several different camera, is filled with clippings from the camp newspapers, some of which appear with the photographs. This scrapbook is housed in the Miakonda Scouting Museum and was a gift from "Irish", one of Mendenhall's daughters who attended this camp. It is a unique and insightful look at camp during the First World War and demonstrates both the similarities and the changes of summer camps over the years. Note how little time was devoted to "instruction" and how much to recreation as compared to today.

Enjoy!