About Camp Stambaugh

The Boy Scouts of America began in 1910, and by 1912, Scouting was established in the Mahoning Valley. Camp Stambaugh opened in July 1919. thanks to a gift from the estate of prominent local industrialist Henry H. Stambaugh (1858-1919). Stambaugh’s expectation was that Thompson would convey the property to the local Scouting organization. In 1919 the property was mostly a treeless pasture and one could see Indian Creek from Stambaugh’s hay barn near Leffingwell Road. That first summer a Council Ring was carved from an old limestone quarry just north of the creek.

In the early 1920s Camp Stambaugh was reforested. In 1923 Indian Creek was dammed to create a four-acre lake. Scouts built a bridge over the creek in 1925, and in the next two decades many cabins and structures were built. The K.L. Brown Pavilion, named for Scout Council executive Kenneth Brown, was erected in 1947 using the foundation of Henry Stambaugh’s barn. The Rotary Club of Youngstown funded the construction of a swimming pool in 1963. A donation of land from the Marino family added 28.5 acres to the camp in 1946. In 1985, the Scout Council purchased the adjacent 223-acre Swanston property. Camp Stambaugh is the second oldest continuously operating Scout camp in Ohio and is tied for ninth oldest in the United States. 

The camp is now part of the Great Trail Council with the consolidation of the former Greater Wester Reserve council.