The History of Troop 1

11/3/2023

By Sam Falk, Troop 1 Historian

Current Troop 1 has been around since the late 1960s and current pack 1 has been around since 2001. Naturally you would think there would be a lot of written history behind Troop 1 right? Well not really.  Troop 1 has many traditions such as the red neckerchief which we wear around our neck.  We also have the quote “see one do one teach one” which means you see something you want to do, you learn how to do it, and then you teach others.  Every December we have board game camp where for a weekend we just play board games. As well as ski camp, where we stay at a cabin for a weekend and during the day leave to go skiing.

So how did Troop 1 come to be? Well all it starts with Minnehaha United Methodist Church (the church Troop 1 is currently stationed at) located at 3701 E 50th St, Minneapolis, MN 55417.  Minnehaha church has had scouting of some type or another over the past 100 years.  However in the late 1940's and early '50's, scouting closed down at Minnehaha.  Troop 1 is a mix of Troop and Pack 125, who were sponsored by the Navy Reserve base at the airport.  And also Troop 185 who joined around the same time in 1995.  What's cool is that one of these 2 troops that joined had only 3 scouts left and after combining troops all 3 became eagle scouts.

Troop numbers were originally assigned by area and troops in our part of South Minneapolis were in the 30's.  Minnehaha was either troop 32 or 34 originally.  When the St Paul and Minneapolis scout councils merged a number of years ago, there were a lot of duplicate numbers.  That's when the extended numbers came in.  Western side units numbered 3000 and Eastern units 9000.  5000 are used for female units on the west and 7000 on the east.  When asked what number they wanted for their new combined troop they asked if 1 was available and were told yes, Hence troop 3001 and now, Minnehaha United Methodist "owns" the numbers 3001 and 5001. This is the known history of Troop 1.

Sources- Corey Needleman, Peter Johson, Louis Hoffman, Ruth Wikoff-Jones, and Joshua Nixon. Special thanks to everyone that helped me write this.