In the waning days of WWII, the Rogue Valley Girl Scouts
Council decided that renting time at the Boy Scouts campground in southern
Oregon wasn’t going to be a permanent solution.
In 1946 they negotiated a lease with what is now the Fremont-Winema
National Forest for acreage at the southeastern tip of Lake of the Woods, in
Klamath County, and set about planning to build what would become Camp Low
Echo. John Boyle, the famed
hydroelectric engineer of the California Oregon Power Company (and father of
two girls) laid out the campground and designed the main lodge. The following year two groups of fathers set
to work, one group set about dissembling a few buildings at Camp White, a US Army Cantonment,
and the other using those salvaged materials (even the windows) to build a
40x100’ foot building facing the lake. They
got some other neat stuff from Camp White too, but more about that later. The main lodge was later dedicated as “Beaver
Lodge,” after the camp name of a scout leader.
For the next seven decades 1000s of girls spent their
summers at Camp Low Echo, learning crafts, swimming in the lake, canoeing and
spending time in the woods among friends.
It was a popular spot. The Girl
Scouts (aided by Kiwanis and Lions) built more buildings, cabins, fire-rings,
and sleeping platforms, that allowed multiple groups to use the camp’s 30 acres. None of these buildings, not even Beaver
Lodge, were architectural wonders and most were built of donated materials, but they did what was needed, and for the summers, kept the bugs out
and provided shelter. When the snow
fell, the uninsulated buildings were vacant, but their green metal roofs kept
them dry until the next summer.
Scouting, for both boys and girls, is somewhat on the wane,
as these traditional activities compete with sports, video games, and other
things. A few years ago the southern
Oregon Girl Scouts Council, along with several other councils, were merged into
a single statewide council based in Portland.
One of the first things that new body decided was that they had too much
property. Sadly, one of the facilities to
be jettisoned was Camp Low Echo, ending any formal association between the scouts
and the camp In September of this year,
after a deliberate process, the Forest Service lease for Camp Low Echo was transferred
to a non-profit organization, which also purchased the Girl Scouts’ buildings with
an eye toward a mixture of restoration, removal and new construction that will
continue Camp Low Echo’s essential focus, while making improvements to allow the facility to operate year-round.
One thing that I expect to remain will be the luggage carts…
a series of wooden boxes (now painted red) with 48” diameter steel rimmed
wheels. The scouts used them to lug
sleeping bags and duffle bags from the parking area to the far reaches of the
grounds (where cars can’t go). What may
not have been remembered is that these carts are also surplus from Camp White,
where they began life as the garbage wagons.
I am thinking that Beaver and the other early leaders did some heavy
cleaning before they were re-purposed!
The exact nature of the upcoming changes hasn’t been decided
yet and for the moment exploration is on-going to evaluate the existing
buildings and see how, and if, they can be upgraded to serve a year-round
purpose. Many were built of salvaged
materials, often by well-meaning if not entirely skilled volunteer labor. There are settlement and rot issues, and the
accumulated impact of six decades of exposure with minimal maintenance. And, of course, the expectations of Girl
Scouts in July isn't the same as what you or I might expect in January. What is clear is that Camp Low Echo has a distinctive
style and a character that is formed by its buildings, but that character is
also just as dependent on the layout and setting. The use of materials and even the colors of
the structures just scream “Camp.” Whatever
happens, I am pretty confident Camp Low Echo in 2014 is going to be easily
recognizable as an evolution in what the Girls Scouts started six decades
ago. At least that’s the plan.
