Onondaga District History

The forming of Onondaga District, like all great things, is shrouded in the mist of time and lost memories. It is fact, however, that a portion of the current district, the City of Syracuse, was the original Syracuse Council.

I'm not sure if in the early days of Scouting there actually were formal districts or just geographic areas. It is known that as early as 1942 the Syracuse District was formed from the merger of Lincoln, Burnet, Central, Bellvue, Lemoyne, and University Districts (or areas). These districts and the Eastern and Southern Districts (which merged in 1946 to form the Limestone District) are our roots.

In 1947 the Syracuse District, at the suggestion of National HQ, was split into the Central-Burnet, University-Bellvue, and Lincoln-Lemoyne districts and in 1948 those districts were all renamed and became:

Old Name	New Name
Central-Burnet	Daniel Boone
University-Bellvue	Buffalo-Bill
Lincoln-Lemoyne	Kit Carson

In 1948 the Lyncourt units were transferred to the Kit Carson District.

These names held until 1964 when for a three month period in 1964 all the districts in the council were numbered. In August 1964 they were:

Name	Number
Buffalo Bill	1
Daniel Boone	2
Kit Carson	3
Interlakes	4
Limestone	5
Three Rivers	6

The information above was gleaned from old copies of the Scouter and the minutes of old executive board meetings held in the archives of the Hillcourt Museum at Camp Woodland.

Ted Holz