• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

..........a history of Region Ten that attempts to show what a Boy Scout Region is, what it does, and how it is guided by the men who give it leadership.......... "Time present and Time past are both perhaps present in Time Future and Time Future contained in Time Past." T. S. Eliot Region Ten Boy Scouts of America St. Paul, Minn. INTRODUCTION The purpc se of this Region Ten history is to cr ;ate a permanent record of the Scouting activities in Region Ten. Willis V. Elliott, assistant to the regional :xecutive, devoted several years to compiling the information and writing the history. A great deal of the information was secured by personal interviews and reviewing very complete records, kept in the regional office, of past years. Region Ten has had a glorious history and is proud that it became the first organized region in the country. The region has also been famous for great pioneers in Scouting who made their start in Paul Bunyanland. I extend special thanks to Willis V. Elliott for the splendid manner in which this history was written. • i jS" f ft i?' w .;•? J it i f p vf/h' , • heNfry w.. scnreiber 'Re'gibnal Executive April 19, 1968 FOREWORD In the fall of 1962, Henry W. Schreiber, Regional Executive of Region Ten, called me into his office and asked me if I would like to write a history of Region Ten. I replied that I would like to try. The history of the Region would cover a span of more than forty years- actually forty-seven years before it would be done. Not until I began to delve into minutes of the Regional Committee, annual reports, correspondence and attempted to compile information on some two hundred men who had been or were members of the Regional Committee did I fully comprehend the complexity of the task and appreciate my lack of training and skill. Still it was fun attempting to recapture the mood of days past and savor the triumphs and failures now dimmed by the dust of time. The editorial portions of the story are entirely my own responsibility and where necessity was the mother of invention I have tried to so indicate. The intent of the material presented is encyclopedic in nature. In one sense, any story of Region Ten is the story of Charles L. Sommers of St. Paul who for twenty-six years served as Regional Chairman, and Frank A. Bean of Minneapolis who served for twenty-one years concurrently with Charles Sommers as Vice Chairman. However, this history is much more than a chronicle of two men. This Sommers and Bean would have been the first to affirm. Over two hundred volunteer Regional Scout leaders and twenty-six career executives on the Regional level sup­ ported, guided and inspired the efforts of several thou­ sand volunteer Scout leaders in councils and a hundred or so professional leaders who served councils. Aiding, abetting and supplementing Region Ten's own leaders were a host of dedicated professionals and volunteers from the National Council and elsewhere who contributed their skills and knowledge. Speaking before the Region Ten Council Presidents in 1956, Harold F. Pote, former Director of Personnel and former Regional Executive of Region Ten, used a phrase as title for his talk that fits our need for title and dedication. So we borrow the phrase and dub the thousands of men, both volunteer and professional, who have served the boys of Region Ten for all or part of the past fOrty- five years as - "MEN OF PAUL BUNYAN STATURE" ********* ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements could easily fill several pages. The Bibliography contains a list of contributors of stories and personal information and to each of these the writer expresses thanks. Particular mention must be made of the tremendous help of Harold Pote and Paul Love in helping to reconstruct the early days. Henry W. Schreiber, 0. B. Evenson and the late Elmaar Bakken examined their portions of the total story and made useful suggestions. The patient help of the Region Ten Secretarial Staff must not go unnoticed, expecially the assistance of Kathryn Marquardt whose excellent memory was invaluable in locating many sources of information. As for the Region Ten Executive Staff who suffered a thousand, "Say, did you know that...", a special aspirinic note. The Region Ten story, largely a story of the good deeds of men, nevertheless, has a heroine, Mrs. Henry W. Schreiber, who read almost every word, corrected punctuation, spelling and syntax. The errors that remain, however, may be credited to the writer. WILLIS V. ELLIOTT October 1967 St. Paul, Minnesota MEN OF PAUL BUNYAN STATURE CONTENTS PAGE PROLOGUE.......................................... VI IB 0 0 K I - Region Ten Takes Its First Steps 1920-29...1 B O 0 K II - Region Ten Takes to the Country Roads 1930-39........ 38 B O 0 K III - The Forties Shape the Future 1940-49..... 92 B O 0 K IV - The Fast and Furious Fifties 1950-59...... 147 B 0 O K V - Space Age Scouting Begins 1960-65.......... 176 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................197 APPENDIX INDEX........................ ...... 201 Contains Biographical Sketches of all Regional Chairman, Regional Executives and holders of the Silver Buffalo; rosters of all members of the Regional Commit-tee and Regional Executive Staff; data sheets on all Region Ten projects and activities; information on council develop­ ment; terms of Council Presidents and Scout Executives. VI PROLOGUE Page Map - 1965 VII . Region Ten 1965 VIII . The Face of the Land VIII The Arrival of Man IX . Indian Tribes x . The Explorers XI The Settlers and the States XIII . Thumbnail Histories - Minnesota XV - Dacotahland XVII - North Dakota XVII - South Dakota XVIII - Montana XIX The Boy Scouts XX f REGION TEN - 1967 BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 238 Minnesota Bldg., St. Paul,Minn. 282 - Cedar Valley 284 - Minnesota Valley 286 - Lake Superior 289 - Viking 290 - Headwaters 295 - Indianhead 296 - Central Minnesota 299 - Gamehaven State 318 - Yellowstone Valley Council 429 - Red River Valley 430 - Lake Agassiz 431 - Great Plains 432 - Missouri Valley 693 - Pheasant 695 - Black Hills 733 - Sioux REGION TEN - 1965 There are twelve Boy Scout Regions in the United States. REGION TEN includes the states of Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, twenty-five counties in eastern and southern Montana, eight counties in northwestern Wisconsin, one county in Michigan, two counties in Wyoming, and one county in Iowa. Thus the region stretches from the western-most county of Michigan on Lake Superior in the East, tc the source of the Missouri River at Three Forks, Montana in the West, and from the Canadian Border in the North to the Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa borders in the South. Roughly an area 1000x400 miles at points of greatest length and width; or 307,296 square miles. Today, sixteen Boy Scout Councils are chartered by the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America to bring the Scout­ ing program to all the boys in this vast area in which, according to the 1960 census, 5,181,077 people reside. Of the Twelve Regions, REGION TEN is the twelfth in population and fifth in land area. tHE FACE OF THE LAND The face of Region Ten-Land, as we know it today was not the result of any one set of geological circumstances, but ai series of geophysical events occurring over periods of a time measured in millions of years. Thus, aeons ago, vol­ canoes belched forth molten lava to form the basic materials that eventually coalesced and became the great Iron Ranges of northern Minnesota. Volcanic action in Montana gave rise to the mountain ranges of south central Montana. Six hun­ dred miles southwest of the Iron Ranges, across the Dakotas, the earths crust ruptured and thrust upward very old layers of rock to form mountains that contained the precious ele­ ments of gold and silver. We know the eroded successors of these mountains as the Black Hills of South Dakota. Once an arm of the Pacific Ocean covered the entire qtate of Montana and the high plains of the Dakotas were qovered by primeval seas on several occasions, but all fin­ ally disappeared. In western-Dakota-land, it is though that c^reat beds of coal caught fire and burned out; then time and drosion etched the strangely beautiful minarets and tortured gullies of the badlands. But, the really great Michaelangelos, that sculptured the land as we know it today, were four massive glaciers that siucessively crept down from the North. The last of these rjetreated some 10,000 years ago scooping out the myriad lake beds of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Canada, filling them with wjater as the glacier retreated northward. Thus were formed the almost endless chain of northern lake and river high­ ways found no where else in the world in such convenient and useful profusion. In similar manner, the ancient and giant Lake Agassiz was formed on the present day border of North Dakota and Minnesota. When this lake finally dried up it left behind the deep rich soil of the Red River Valley of the North. The melting ice of the glaciers had much to do with the fbrmation of the big river systems in Region Ten, particu­ larly, the Minnesota and Mississippi in Minnesota, the St. Croix in Wisconsin, the upper Missouri in Montana and Nbrth Dakota, the Yellowstone in Montana, and the Red River of the North, which now forms the North Dakota and Minnesota boundary. THE ARRIVAL OF MAN When did man first arrive upon the scene in Region TOn? No one can say for certain, but the evidence indicates that man was on the scene before the end of the last gla­ cial period about 10,000 years ago.

Load more

  397

Copy Link