PRESERVE • RESTORE • CRESCENT BAY HISTORICAL PROJECT
Scouting on the westside of Los Angeles got its start in the early Twentieth Century. By 1921, the Boy
Scouts of Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Venice, Inglewood and coastal Southern California
communities in between, organized into the Crescent Bay District
Council. By the 1950's, the Council was interchangeably referred to as Crescent Bay and Crescent Bay Area. The communities of Inglewood and Redondo Beach split off to form their own Council in 1924, quickly merging into Los Angeles Council in 1925. Scouting within the remaining communities of Crescent Bay Council flourished until 1972 when it merged with the San
Fernando Valley Council to form Great Western Council. Today, the former Crescent Bay Council is a district of Western Los Angeles County Council.
During its
fifty-plus year history, the scouts from CrescentBay distinguished themselves and their Council as among the best in the United
States. In the 1920's, they almost became the
wealthiest Boy Scout Council in the country. Their camps offered some of the
most unique and finest camping experiences anywhere. The
Council's scouts and supporters were leaders in all fields, including business,
the professions, sports, and even as advisers to U.S. Presidents. Crescent Bay members went on to leadership roles in professional scouting including ascending to the position of Chief Scout Executive of
the Boy Scouts of America.
Find What You are Looking For There are four ways to navigate through the Crescent Bay Council web site:
SUBJECT TABS - found to the left, these khaki green tabs are set up by subject: Council, Camps, Order of the Arrow, Training, Troops etc. When you pass your cursor over a tab, more BROWN TABS will display allowing you to further narrow your search. SUBJECT TABS display on the left of every page. While the site is under construction, pages that are still being developed will display as empty.
Page Finder INDEX - found below, the Page Finder Index is organized by the type of information you are looking for such as patches, histories, lists, photos, documents etc. Click on any topic to go directly where you want. The Page Finder INDEX link displays in the upper right corner of every page.
What's New - found to the right, lists all pages and items posted to the web site by date with the newest items at the top. Click on any item to go there directly.
Search - found in the gray header bar at the top of this page, allows you to type in a person's name, your troop or any specific subject you want to see. All pages within this site that match your search will display. If no pages match, try searching for fewer words or less specific terms.
About the Images
There are currently over three thousand images plus video within the Crescent Bay Council web site. Care has been taken to reproduce the memorabilia, photos and documents allowing for detailed, high-resolution, display.
While the majority of images are easily viewed directly on the screen, you may occasionally want a closer look. Viewers of the site have reported on various ways to magnify images and read documents that may not seem readable at first glance. Firefox® users can "right click" on any image and then click "view image" to open a larger image in a new window. Many computer systems have a Zoom function to view the screen at 150% and 200%. It is also possible to copy images and paste them into Microsoft Word®, thereby allowing for magnification as may be required.
About the Crescent Bay Historical Project
The Project
is the result of over forty-five years of data and memorabilia collecting and
preservation by a small group of scouting historians, all with memories
of
their younger days as Boy Scouts in the Crescent Bay Area Council. The images pictured are part of the collection and archive assembled by Dr. Jeff Morley from 1965 through the present. Special thanks
go out to Bill Topkis, whose advice and help in locating and acquiring items for the collection and archive have been invaluable.
Acknowledgments are also due to the former Scouts of Crescent Bay Area Council whose efforts have helped preserve the history
of scouting on the westside of Los Angles and whose generous gifts of memorabilia, documents and photos have contributed to the building of the Crescent Bay Council Archive.
Board of Directors
Jeff Morley
Founder & Webmaster
Bill Topkis
Director
Frank Glick
Director
Tom Gould
Director
Contributors
Adam Lombard
Dr. Paul Millman
Mike Robbins
Frank Sanford
Pierce Weir
Ken Simpson
Marc Medoff
Hon. Kenneth Chotiner
Keith Bair
Barney Mann
Larry Solow
Dr. Brian Solow
A. Lee Sellers
Michael Doland
What follows is a
pictorial history of the Council, its districts, programs, camps,
people and memorabilia. Enjoy browsing through the pages. If you have
information, images or memorabilia that should be added, please contact Dr.
Morley