Coosa Lodge History Committee - Order of the Arrow

Introduction

As an organization, the Order of the Arrow is uniquely obligated to preserve its history and traditions, but we have not done a great job of that. This is true in many lodges.

At the 2018 National Order of the Arrow Conference, several members of Coosa Lodge served on the NOAC museum staff. This experience led to a renewed interest in preserving and publishing our complete history, which is no small task.

The books and other material we create may eventually be available to purchase in print formats, but they will always be available as free PDF downloads from our website.

Projects

We are currently working on several projects:

The History of Coosa Lodge

To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone has tried to document the entire history of Coosa Lodge and its predecessors, Cherokee Lodge #50, Achunanchi Lodge #135, and Kaskanampo Lodge #310. These lodges have a combined history of 208 years. That's a lot of history!

This project will cover the following:

annual historical reviews
lodge and chapter officers and advisers
Vigil Honor recipients
Founder's Award recipients
Section alignment history
complete patch histories
... and more!

Our current goal is to create a baseline for these histories, then release annual updates that go deeper into the old lodges and update the most recent year for Coosa Lodge. We had a preview copy at the 2020 Fall Fellowship. Our next anticipated update is at the 2021 Winter Banquet.

Click here to download our latest draft release. (Last updated Nov. 2020.)

How They Got Their Name (WORKING TITLE)

Our council's history is rich with people who made significant contributions to Scouting and their communities. Some of those individuals were recognized for those contributions by having a camp, dining hall, program area, service center, or other property named in dedication to them.

Here are a few examples:

Hugh M. Comer Scout Reservation
C. M. Jesperson Dining Hall (at Camp Comer)
Chief Cross Lake (at Camp Sequyah)
John H. Goodloe Service Center (in Huntsville)
Charles T. Clayton Service Center (in Birmingham)

This book will document as many of those stories as we can dig up. Our goal is to publish a book once we have 100+ locations documented.

Wood Badge History

In coordination with the Greater Alabama Council History Committee, we have begun working on the history of Wood Badge courses held within the modern area of the Greater Alabama Council. We are currently looking for information on all previous courses. If you have any old photos, rosters, newsletters, sign-up flyers, or anything else, please let us know!

Greater Alabama Council Camp Histories

This project will span every documented summer camp property in the history of the Greater Alabama Council and its legacy councils. This starts with our earliest camps in the 1910s and 1920s and continues through today.

Oral History Project

Our team is collecting recorded oral histories from around the council. These first-hand accounts of the Scouting experience are invaluable to our research.

If you're interested in sharing a story with us for future generations, please email us.

Local Unit Histories

Does your unit historian have a detailed account of your unit's history? We'd love to have a copy for our library!

Does your unit historian wish he had a better detailed account of your unit's history? We can help you get started!

Future Projects

We have several other projects on our long-term plan, including:

History of NYLT (incl. Whitefire, Nendawen Journey, and Allohakasin Challenge)
Sea Scouting -- Did you know that the 1930 National Flagship was from Birmingham?
Scout Hiking Trails
Council Histories (district alignments, professional leadership, etc.)
Anything else we're missing!

If you're interested in helping us with one or more of these, let us know!

How to Contribute

There are several things on our to-do list, including:

Histories of significant program elements (Explorer Post 50, Coosa Shows, etc.) • Complete patch histories for all four lodges.
Listings for all lodge officers, chapter chiefs, advisers, etc.
Calendars of past events.
Brief biographies of historically significant Arrowmen.
Brief essays of your memories from your time as an Arrowman.

We are always looking for new source material from the history of our lodge and council. This includes photos, newsletters, event rosters, calendars, meeting minutes, membership cards, award certificates, memorabilia, and anything else that you might have.

If you’re willing to share a digital copy, we can digitize just about anything. If you’re looking to give your treasures a new home, we’ll be glad to add them to our permanent collection.