Scouting, Volume 73, Number 3, May-June 1985 Page: 4

                                
THE WAY
IT WAS
THE YEARS OF THE
TREK CARTS
No longer did Scouts
have to hike long
distances in baggy
uniforms lugging camp
gear on their backs. The
trek cart gave them
mobility and boosted
overnight camping like
nothing had before.
By Keith Monroe
Turnover in membership was horrendous dur-
ing the first dozen years of the Boy Scouts of
America. Totals were higher each year, but the
totals were comprised mostly of newcomers. In
1915 only 35 percent of the members reregistered.
Half the troops organized in 1919 died within
two years. By 1922 the reregistration rate, while
climbing, was still only 49 percent for Scouts,
51 percent for Scoutmasters and assistants.
What was wrong? Too little outdoor fun. The
talk of camping attracted droves of boys and
men who drifted away when it didn't happen.
Local councils soon established summer camps
but still lost members because once-a-year camp-
ing wasn't enough. So they exhorted leaders to
take troops camping every month.
Many Scoutmasters couldn't get away for week-
ends, and knew better than to send their Scouts
out alone. As a substitute they led one-day out-
ings and tried to make these seem like camps.
Scouting for April 1920 quoted an Oklahoma
Scout's report, implying that it was fairly typical:
"We started about a quarter of nine. We had
some time on the way. My rubbers came off
three or four times. We got there about half past
eleven. First we pitched tents. Then we cooked.
I had four wieners and pie. After that we played
Capture the Flag. We stayed till six o'clock. We
took the tents down and packed up and went
home."
Such hikes disappointed Scouts. The 1920
Handbook for Scoutmasters complained: "Many
Scoutmasters pick out a nice camping place about
seven miles away and spend a large part of the
time hiking along a road, with more or less
luggage, going to the place and getting back.
The boys become tired, the younger ones lag
behind, they are interested in nothing but the
next well or a place to rest."
More and more Scoutmasters attempted over-
night camping trips—not easy in an era when
autos were rare. Often a troop had to go the
whole distance on foot, in their baggy uniform
coats with tight collars and their knee britches
with canvas leggings, carrying tents and bedrolls.
Stuart Walsh, an early Chicago Scoutmaster who
later became a Scout executive, recalled that his
troop returned from its first overnighter mosquito-
bitten but cheerful, with two Scouts clad in blan-
kets because their wet clothes had fallen into the
fire.
Honolulu's first two Scoutmasters, Howard
Hitchcock and James A. Wilder, merged their
troops for their first camp. Wilder wrote of the
experience: "Thirty-one boys—a fairly smart lot
of the silver spoon variety, with a leavening of
the lump by the presence of several other boys.
All the work had to be done by the two Scout-
masters. We nearly died from fatigue! We were
both good individual campers, but we found that
camping alone and camping with two dozen
youngsters were vastly different propositions.
We came to see the truth in the Scout saying,
'Work with boys—not only for boys.' "
It was Wilder (a jolly cosmopolite and tireless
worker in Scouting) who began to promote a
device that soon became widely used by troops:
the Scout-built trek cart. It offered a better way
than backpacking for moving bulky tents, bed-
ding, food, and cooking gear.
As sketched by Wilder, the cart was a big box
made of one-inch packing case lumber. It was
about four feet wide and six or seven feet long,
with a depth of eight to 12 inches. The box was
mounted on two wooden buggy wheels. At first
a long tongue was attached to the front, but some
troops changed this to two handles and a cross
bar. Others added drag ropes. The cart could be
compactly loaded with everything a patrol needed
for a camp, and the cart itself was designed to be
dismantled and used as camp gear. Its sides
came apart and served as benches. The bed of
the cart had folding legs attached, so it became a
table when dismounted from the wheels.
Wilder worked out his system in great detail
and set it forth in a pamphlet called The Pine
Tree Patrol, published by the BSA and available
then at council service centers. Each item in the
cart theoretically had its given number and place,
but troops improvised their own changes in
Wilder's plan. He specified sleeping bags, which
were beginning to be widely used, but many
tie
May-June 1985 r<C Scouting