Girls in Iowa formed Camp Fire groups as soon as word of the new organization arrived. Camp Fire Girls were part of a Chautauqua in Davenport, Iowa in 1911 and the first groups were established that June, almost a year before Camp Fire was incorporated.[1]
In June 1914 Luther Halsey Gulick and his daughter Frances participated in the Rural Life Conference in Ames, giving lectures along with Ernest Thompson Seton who talked about the Boy Scouts. Edith Kempthorne, who had introduced Camp Fire Girls to Juneau, Alaska the previous fall and Sadie Holiday, a 1909 graduate of the University of Iowa who had attended the Gulicks’ camp in Maine both attended the conference. In August Holiday directed a camp for Camp Fire guardians at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory at Lake Okoboji. Holiday continued to direct this camp for Camp Fire Girls into the 1920s when she established Camp Holiday in Minnesota.[2]
Camp Hantesa near Boone was Iowa’s first permanent camp and is probably pictured on more different postcards than any other camp. Over two dozen different cards depict various scenes at Hantesa. The earliest postmarked card is from 1935 a decade and a half after the camp was established. The Des Moines Register reported on the Camp Fire Girls’ camp at the Ledges near Boone in August 1919. That year groups of Camp Fire Girls from all over central Iowa attended the camp for a week before returning to school. The director was Mrs. W.C. Nelson and she was assisted by “Miss Baker of Nevada”.[3]
Hantesa started with the purchase of a few acres and grew when Mr. and Mrs. Albert Rocho of Boone donated 40 acres of land along with a log house. Later 40 more acres were leased from Mr. and Mrs. L. D. Langworthy. By 1965 Camp Hantesa had grown to 132 acres of wooded land and it accommodated 300-375 girls each week during the summer. It is now 166 acres. [4]
Closer to home, Ames Camp Fire Girls also enjoy Camp Canwita which was established in 1929 and is still operated as a day camp. In the 1920s Ames girls could hike to Camp Canwita and stay overnight. [5]
For a short time, Cedar Rapids Camp Fire Girls used Camp Wapsie near Central City followed by Camp Wohelo at Stony Ridge in 1929 and 1930. When the Stony Ridge site was no longer available, they found a beautiful site along a river which became Camp Hitaga, opening in 1931.
Camp Hitaga welcomed campers through the summer of 2014. On November 25, 2014, the property was sold. The new owners were expected to preserve the natural resources, make the required repairs, and their willingness to share the land with the local community and charitable organizations. Lynda Jones writes evocatively of being a counselor at Camp Hitaga during the 1960s.
Several other Iowa Camp Fire Girls’ camps are listed in Porter Sargent’s Handbook of Summer Camps during the 1920s but they are not covered by Iowa newspapers. One camp, Iwaqua, at Little Sioux, Iowa, was operated by the Omaha, Nebraska Camp Fire Girls from 1919 until 1931 when there were a number of cases of typhoid fever at the camp.[6]
Before boys could become members of Camp Fire, Hantesa bore the distinction of being Iowa’s oldest camp for girls. Today it is the oldest Camp Fire camp in the United States and the only Camp Fire camp in Iowa. Hantesa provides day and resident camp for children from kindergarten through high school as well as family camps, and special winter and spring break camps.
[1] Adams County Free Press May 24, 1911; Leon Journal-Reporter (Leon, Iowa) May 25, 1911; Denison Review (Denison, Iowa) May 24, 1911; Quad City Times (Davenport, Iowa) June 8, 1911; Iowa City Press-Citizen May 28, 1920.
[2] Iowa City Press-Citizen April 18, 1924; September 2, 1925; October 26, 1928.
[3] “Open Girls’ Camp at the Ledges this week” The Des Moines Register August 24, 1919.
[4] “Hantesa Oldest Girls Camp in Iowa” The Boone News-Republican September 13, 1965.
[5] Ames Daily Tribune May 27, 1929.
[6] Des Moines Register August 9, 1930.
Memories we Cherish 