Camp Brinkley: This history of Camp Brinkley is taken from the 1967 "Camp Brinkley Staff Handbook", and was written by Mr. Mike Heavener. "How many of you know that camp Brinkley was to be the first camp on the Cascade Scout Reservation? It was to have been, years before 1967. In 1955, it became apparent to the Chief Seattle Council that the facilities of Camp Parsons, on Hood Canal, were being over taxed. The executive council turned to the newly purchased Cascade Reservation for camps to relieve the pressure on Camp Parsons. They had a plan of development which would assure them of a new camp whenever the other facilities became overcrowded. The long-range plan called for five camps to be built. Camp A, with a dining hall and large kitchen, was to be built first. Camp B, was to be an Explorer camp. Camp C, was to be the patrol site cooking camp. However, when it became evident that Parsons just wasn't adequate, the council tagged Camp C as the most inexpensive, and by far the easiest and quickest to build. Work was started in 1956 and finished in time for the start of the camping season the same year. Since they couldn't keep calling its camp C, they had a name contest in which the boy who won received a pocket knife. The name Omache means "Land of the Big Medicine".
In 1959 the Chief Seattle Council started its Golden Jubilee Development
Program. This was mainly a fund-raising campaign and the goal was one million
dollars. The friends were to renovate Camp Parsons, to expand Camp Omache and
Camp Shepherd, and to develop and construct Camp A. In this same time period,
the Cascade Reservation annexed a piece of land for Camp B-the Explorer Camp.
Since this land had been a ranch and had a barn, it was the decided that it
would remain a ranch. Camp B also got a name; after T. Byron Hunt, former
executive of the Chief Seattle Council, it was called T--H Ranch. After the
Golden Jubilee fund drive was over, the council found it had taken in one
million two hundred thousand dollars. This was more than a quarter million
dollars over the pre-set goal. The biggest contributor was James Foote Brinkley
who donated the money used to build the Brinkley Dining Hall.
Now Camp A could become a reality. But where would they put it. Camp Omache took
up all of Lake Hughes and the T--H ranch NE of Omache created a boundary for a
small piece of land centered around Lake Bevis. This location proved to be
perfect, for the present camp surrounds the lake instead of being built up away
from the lake, as Omache is. Having established that the camp would go in that
area, the council began looking around for a design. Several men started working
on it, but in 1964 Mr. Russell Sabin, of Nelson, Sabin, and Varey, finished the
design that the Chief Seattle Council decided upon. The council voted funds and
the same firm contracted to build the camp. In early 1966 the ground was broken
and construction was begun. The first building completed was the shower house,
in time for the last season of the T--H as a separate camp. In 1966, Mr.
Brinkley passed away. Camp A was then named after him. A Seattle carver, Bill
Holm, had a 8 ft. by 5 ft. carving of an Eagle. Mr. Brinkley's family bought it
and donated it to the camp. It now sets on the mantle of the fireplace in the
dining hall, which is also named after Mr. Brinkley. The layout of camp was
excellent as far as the campsite positions and program areas, both of which are
designed to tie in with troops advancement. Mr. Hugh Hudson, a scouter from the
South Central District, designed all of the program area gates in Camp Brinkley
to be action gates; to surprise Scouts and perk up their enthusiasm.
The construction was going well when 1967 started, but it wasn't finished when the staff arrived in June, in fact many of the areas hadn't been started. The program areas had to be worked on by the staff who use them, the trading post and handycrafts crew stocked and sorted their materials, kitchen and dining hall staff stock shelves, prepared food, readied equipment and got ready to serve some 250 or more campers per week, and the waterfront fixed up the beach and watched the water level warily, hoping it would rise. Then came Order out of the Arrow week in which all of the ordeal candidates worked on the camp. The first week of camp everyone was frantically trying to finish the program areas for use. At the end of the first week was the dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony. Many dignitaries came to see the camp they and their companies had donated money to. At the dedication Camp A was officially christened Camp Brinkley and Lake Bevis became Hunt Lake, after T. Byron Hunt. At the trading post could be bought official Camp Brinkley neckerchiefs and slides, T-shirts, mugs, and other Brinkley items designed by the program director, Mr. Skip Dudschus. On Mondays and Fridays all the campers went to the camp wide council fire, the Kandahupa Maca, for a little fun and singing in the arena which Mr. Dudschus also designed. Mr. Glen Harmon was the excellent construction foreman for the Kandahupa Maca. The camp originally was intended to run only seven weeks but under a government program for underprivileged boys, scouts and non--scouts, from Seattle's central area, were able to come to camp for one week. Mr. Dean Kernahan, the camp director, told this reporter that the camp was ready for the future. As later developments, he said, the council plans to build one additional patrol shelter in every shelter site and a third program shelter."