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The Lone Scout Memory Lodge Museum was constructed at Camp John J. Barnhardt on Badin Lake between 1968 and 1970 by a group of volunteers.

The museum, dedicated Aug. 13, 1970, held a collection of pins, patches, books and other memorabilia that told the story of the Lone Scouts.

Lone Scouts of America was founded in 1915 by W.D. Boyce, who had founded the Boy Scouts in 1910. It was made up mostly of rural boys who could not easily get to a town where the minimum criteria of five boys and three adult leaders could be met to form a troop.

The Lone Scouts merged with the Boy Scouts in 1924, but it has continued to operate, and there are still Scouts in this program today.

The Lone Scout Memory Lodge Museum was officially closed at Camp Barnhardt in 2006. The bulk of the collection was transferred to the W.D. Boyce Scout Museum in Ottawa, Ill.

{Lewis Bramlett – Stanly County Historical Society}