Foxfire.
When bringing up memories of Troop 861, Foxfire will always be one of them for many Scouts. Early on in the Troop’s existence, Louis Milsted the Troop’s first Scoutmaster determined that there needed to be a place for the Troop to camp at, it needed to be two and half miles from the church so the Scouts could hike there and back and complete a five mile hike. He and Bob Taylor, one of the Assistant Scoutmasters, went driving in search of such a place, when they spotted a stand of woods, with a man, Ted Goking plowing the field nearby. They stopped Mr. Goking, asking him if the Troop could use his property to camp and hike to, Mr. Goking replied that they could.
1962, aerial view of Foxfire 1962, Signal Tower. 1962, Awaiting the Campfire program.
The Troop then began to have day hikes out to the area. Next the campsite needed a name, three names were proposed; Troop 61 Camp, ‘Possum Woods, and Foxfire. During a few of those trips to the woods, the Scouts had come across a mother opossum and her babies in a tree, they had also encountered phosphorous wood chips known as “foxfire.” When it came to vote upon the name, a science teacher from North High School came and explained what “foxfire” was, and that name won – unanimously.
On the weekend of June 22-24th in 1962, Troop 861 had its first campout at Foxfire and began construction of patrol campsites. Upon arrival at camp, Mr. Milsted instructed the Scouts in the proper techniques for clearing a campsite, then left the Scouts to go about it. Rolf Enger, one of the Scouts there that weekend explained what happened next; “After receiving a briefing on the proper techniques for clearing a campsite, we set to work. Unfortunately, the briefing was incomplete. Imagine Mr. Milsted’s horror when, on checking our work, he found some of us pulling up poison ivy with our bare hands!" Each patrol had its own campsite in the woods, there was also an area for the adult leaders and junior leaders. The patrol sites were on the north end of the woods, with the Black Panthers in the northwest corner, going towards the east were the Flaming Arrows, then Thunderbirds, and the Crow’s in the northeast corner. The adults and junior leaders had their sites on the southside of the woods. A campfire ring was also built.
After hauling water to the camp in milk cans from the farm for a number of campouts, Mr. Milsted and Bob Taylor hand tapped a well for water. Unfortunately the well needed to be tapped twice, on the first try water was found about eleven feet below ground, however upon testing the water they found that the filter had torn. On the second try they needed to go down fourteen feet. Mr. Milsted related that he had never been so physically tired as he was after the ordeal of hand tapping the well twice, and mostly through clay. That well continued to be used as long as Troop 861 camped at Foxfire.
The troop camped at “Foxfire” usually twice a year, in the spring and fall, sometimes more. Scouts did various activities there; rocketry, cooking competitions, scoutcraft, patrol competitions, camp maintenance, and much more. But Foxfire was not just used for campouts in those early days. Before today’s Highway 23 and high traffic, the troop hiked to Foxfire and back during meetings and they held “Foxfire Relays”. The “Foxfire Relays” were hiking competitions with competition stations along the way where the patrols competed against one another; these too were held on Scout meeting nights.
“Foxfire” was really special, it was a place of our own. A place where Scouting came to life!
