By Sylvia Neely
Thirteen hundred girls and adults will be celebrating a birthday in the tri-city area this week. Every year since 1912, the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. celebrate that day with parties and special ceremonies or service projects.
The first Girl Guide Company was organized on this date in Savannah, Georgia. In 1913 the name was changed to Girl Scouts, this was also the year the first camp was held.
Juliette Gorden Low "Daisy" was a friend of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell from England. The Baden-Powells had started Scouting and Guiding in that country in 1909, and they inspired Daisy to do the same for her own country. A highlight of 1956 was Lady Baden-Powell's visit to Phoenix for a 50th Anniversary Pageant.
The uniform of the 1912 troop was a middy blouse tucked into a long blue skirt. In 1919 the uniform color changed to khaki. The first Girl Scout handbook was called HOW GIRLS CAN HELP THEIR COUNTRY. Proficiency badges could be obtained after passing the necessary tests: Child-Nurse, Farmer, Invalid Cooking, Laundress, Matron Housekeeper and Signaling to name a few.
The early history of Girl Scouting in our country is a thrilling story of how one woman's tireless energy and boundless enthusiasm conquered discouragement so that the girls of this country might have the joys and benefits of this program.
A quote from the 1930 handbook could be written about our own Arizona women. "Our early history is sprinkled thickly with brave, handy girls, who were certainly Girl Scouts, though they never belonged to a patrol, nor recited the Girl Scout Laws. But they lived the laws, those strong young pioneers, and we can stretch out our bands to them across the years when we read of them."
Today, Girl Scouts continue many of the same traditions and activities that troops did in 1916 when there were only 3,000 members. Prescott women knew that scouting would be beneficial to our girls and began work to establish a troop in that year.
Maxie Webster Dunning and her husband Charles came by wagon from Phoenix to a little house in the mountains near Prescott. Her husband managed the Big Pine Mine on Mt. Tritle in the Bradshaw Mountains in 1910.
In 1916 Maxie wrote to the National headquarters of the Girl Scouts for an appointment as "captain" of a troop in Prescott. She did not receive the appointment until 1918, but in the interim she had secured a Girl Scout handbook and provided a program, operating as Girl Reserves.
The National President of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. in 1923 was Mrs. Herbert Hoover. She made several trips to Arizona, and was eager to start Girl Scout camping in the state because of the wonderful outdoor facilities offered here.
About thirty girls camped around the Alexander cabin at Iron Springs in 1928. Tennis, folk dancing, and horseback riding added to the usual program.
From 1929 through 1939, the Girls Friendly "Holiday House" in Hassayampa Mt. Club was used. The camp sessions, called Casa Fiesta, featured riding, swimming, and life saving, as well as a Pioneer Unit from 1935 on.
The first camp folder and backpack trip to Big Pine Mine for the Pioneer Unit took place in 1936.
In 1940, there was a need for a permanent camp and a part time director Maxie Dunning was elected as camp chairman and camp was held at the Dunning Big Pine Mine site. This was available to seventy-four girls and eleven adults for three one-week sessions. Gold panning, the visit of a Mountain Lion, and the climb of Mt. Tritle were special events.
Kendall Mine, another deserted gold mine on Mt. Tritle, was the scene of the 194l camp.
In 1942, Maxie announced to the Board that the City of Prescott was willing to lease the CCC site in Groom Creek for two years at $1.00 per year. Later eighty adjoining acres were obtained. This land was to be called Camp Maripai, created from the names of Maricopa and Yavapai Counties.
The camp was filled to capacity, but tents and food were hard to come by. People were generous, particularly with garden products. The camp received many donations, especially carrots. The girls ate carrots morning, noon and night, they even found a recipe for carrot cookies and candy.
It was a primitive camp, but for the city girl it was a wonderful outdoor experience. Electricity did not come to Maripai until 1949.
Nan Kozdruy, who now lives in Prescott, was a camper in 1945 at Maripai. She remembers: "There were only two latrines in use, but new "two-seaters" were going in soon. The creek was our southern boundary as well as our water supply. Water was collected in huge cans and chlorine added. Ugh! Dishwashing was done in buckets, each girl doing her own. Showers were added a year later." Nan later went back as a staff member and went on to work for the Arizona Cactus-Pine Girl Scout Council in Phoenix. This council was formed in 1936. Yavapai County became a member in 1963.
The Goldwater family from Phoenix did a lot to make the camp possible with money from Goldwater's Fashion Shows.
In 1951, the Prescott Girl Scout Association acquired 17 1/2 acres in Groom Creek through the City of Prescott, with the Prescott Kiwanis Club sponsoring the project. The first Prescott Girl Scout Camp was formed in 1958 under the leadership of Mary Fran (Mrs. Jack) Ogg. At the current time Bradshaw Pines is leased from the city by the Kiwanis Club and it is open to all youth in the community. A Girl Scout history was compiled by Mary Fran and Elsie Blanton in 1962. It is included in a time capsule, buried in Prescott, that will be opened in 2012.
When opened, we are sure that it will reflect the Girls Scout mission: To inspire in girls the highest levels of character, conducts, patriotism and service, empowering them to develop a sense of their own self-worth, to achieve their full potential, and to prepare for the realities of a changing world.
Prescott is proud of its scouting history, and now looking forward to the future.
(Sylvia Neely was a Girl Scout for 25 years. She is now a volunteer researcher at Sharlot Hall Museum.)