The former Boy Scout Camp Red Wing in Muncie is up for sale - again.
MUNCIE, Ind. — For more than 90 years, Camp Red Wing was where local Boy Scouts canoed, hiked, camped and earned badges.
Sold off in 2020, the historic camp in the vicinity of Prairie Creek Reservoir is now up for sale again.
A real estate auction service, Fine and Company, has the camp listed online to be auctioned off Aug. 16. The listing divides the property into two tracts, divided where the White River runs through the camp. The 63-acre tract on the north side of the river is listed for a minimum bid of $450,000, and includes the structures and facilities left from the Boy Scouts' days there. Seventy-five acres on the south side of the river, listed at a minimum bid of $750,000, includes woods and land that could be used for farming, according to the listing.
Camp Red Wing opened in 1925. A Muncie Star article from June 1925, headlined "Scout Camp to open on June 29," noted that boys had been helping to prepare the site at the Aretus Rees farm for the camp opening. "The camp has a beautiful setting along the river, which divides at that point, and forms a small island," the article noted. "Foot bridges have been built for easy access from one side of the river to the other. The boys have access to thirty acres of woodland for their camp."
The 1925 article credited the camp's name to "an old Indian legend concerning a famous warrior, Red Wing."
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By the summer of 1972, local newspapers reported the camp had added another 55 acres to its grounds in order to add activities such as a skeet shooting range and archery with moving targets. The camp's lodge, built in 1958, burned down in October 1974, and a new lodge was constructed a few years later.
By 1988, a task force for the Boy Scouts Crossroads of America Council proposed consolidating properties and closing several camps, including Camp Red Wing, prompting strong objections from local scouting supporters, according to newspaper reports. In September 1988, however, the Crossroads council voted to keep the camps open.
The camp continued to serve local Boy Scouts through its 75th anniversary in 2000. A July 2006 article noted the grounds included a new 24-bed bunkhouse, five program shelters, lodge with seating for 150 and a kitchen, plus camping, campfire and chapel areas and a several cabins.
By September 2019, the Crossroads of America Council decided to sell Camp Red Wing, along with two other camps in Indiana, noting the three were operating at a loss.
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The property listing for Camp Red Wing on Beacon.com shows the property being sold twice since then, once in 2020, and again in 2021. A "Camp Red Wing" Facebook page with posts from summer 2021 billed it as offering campsites and spaces for events like reunions, cookouts and celebrations.
The local Girl Scouts camp, Camp Munsee, founded in 1936 on the northwest side of Prairie Creek Reservoir, faced a similar fate more than a decade ago, when it was closed and put up for sale. That property was sold in 2010 to Red-tail Land Conservancy for preservation of the forest, and is now renamed Munsee Woods.
Contact content coach Robin Gibson at ragibson@gannett.com or 765-213-5855. Follow her on Twitter @RobinGibsonTSP.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Former Boy Scout Camp in Muncie g is up for sale - again
