Last weekend Destry and I attended the Indy TOR, another great regional one, and got to visiting with Dave Ramp, Paul Myers and Dennis Sydloski about the camps of Anthony Wayne Area Council (AWAC). AWAC is headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Its one of those mid-west councils that is strong but was even stronger years ago and has a very rich camp history. What brought this up was I recently acquired a Camp Limberlost patch.

I was not sure when it was used but Dave filled in the information:

Hi Roy,   The Camp Limberlost patch has the blue backing teepee which is a staff patch, plus the orange teepee which represents a third year at Camp. I have the C/L patch with just the blue backing. which could represent a first year staffer or a 2nd year as a staffer (just not sure as I need written doc. on these practices). Have several others on sashes, but need to look at them again (on display at the Council Office), and they came from a youth staff member. Also have a C/I on sash from this fellows brother. Both were younger brothers of Harvey Price later to become Chief Scout Exect.  They would date from after 1929 (1st year of camp which issued a patch on it’s maiden year plus 1 to 3 years and ran thru 1934 when the Limberlost property went back to the estate of Jean Stratton Porter  because the Council couldn’t make the morgage payment and moved the camp unto Big Island across the frozen Sylvan Lake. It then became Camp Island in 1935-36. In 1937 the name was change to Camp Big Island. The red and green silkscreened 1937 & 1938 were used, and I’m very sure blue ones exist for staff. In 1939 the embrodied on felt patches were started. They exist in red, maroon, green , and blue for staff, and continued dated until 1946 when they went to 1st year, 2nd year etc, thru 6th year in red, green and blue. The last in this series started around 1949 or 1950 (not sure) with just Big Island/Camp in red & maroon or on the blue staff just- Big Island. These ended around 1951 or 1952 when the twills went into use.     Rather confusing and complex for a rather small camp. I figure that there could be nearly 60 different felt patches, plus there are several minor varities of the Indian Head on several differnt years. Other items exist such as green segments (7 known) for various achievements. If one earned 3 of these in a year he got a year dated segment and these date from 1951-1955 and are very hard to find.  Your Sixth Year Camper patch is very hard to find. I don’t have it, but Paul Meyers does. All in all Big Island is a very interesting Camp to collect. Hope this helps you understand the sequence of these patches. I think my collection may be the largest, but then I might be wrong, but Paul M. has less than I do, but have not seen his sashes from AWAC.      YiS,  Dave      

Part of what makes this camp and council so interesting is that it is home to one of the toughest old names for Order of the Arrow lodges – Miami Lodge 75 that chartered in 1935 and changed to Kiskakon Lodge 75 in 1938. We’re in the process of brokering one of the few surviving patches from this lodge. See below: