1957 Jamboree Article

[OneHour 11]

A co-worker pointed me to this great article. The magazine is Classic Trains (Summer 2007). It recounts "How the railroads moved 35,000 Boy Scouts to the 1957 Jamboree." It has great pictures of the scouts and the trains. Below is the link to "a Texas Scout''s account of the 1957 Jamboree."

 

http://www.trains.com/ctr/default.aspx?c=a&id=220

 

Here is the link to the issue itself.

 

http://www.trains.com/ctr/default.aspx?c=i&id=2&iid=30

 

1Hour

[eisely 13]

I was fortunate enough to go to this jamboree and we also went by train. While the jamboree itself lasted only seven days, each unit spent 10 days in Valley Forge. The reason was that the railroad facility for handling the trains could not handle but a third of the scouts in a day.

 

We boarded a car in Moberly Missouri and were attached to another passenger train enroute to St. Louis. In St. Louis we were put into a special train with other scouts from other parts of Missouri. We did our touring enroute to Valley Forge, visiting many of the same places mentioned in the article.

 

I put up my life''s savings to date of $250 into this, which covered everything. The Roman Catholic mass I attended on Sunday was in the main ampitheatre mentioned in the article. The mass was celebrated by the archbishop of Philadelphia. It was the largest religious gathering I have ever attended in my life.

 

Being less than totally obedient scouts, I and my patrol, went through the fence on the turnpike not far from our camp site, crossed the turnpike to visit a Howard Johnson''s that had been calling to us the entire time we were there. The jamboree staff had adults with vehicles there to greet us and return us to camp. They were gracious enough to let us buy and eat our ice cream. Somehow they knew we were coming.