In 1926, Ohio Governor Alvin Donahey approved
setting aside 55 acres of the Roosevelt Game
Refuge for a Boy Scout camp. Since that time
Camp Oyo has served Boy Scouts and other groups
from Ohio and Kentucky. The name 'Oyo' is from
an Iroquois word meaning "great water or principal
river." During the peak of the Great Depression
in 1933, local Scout executive Harry Wagner
approached the Civil Works Administration for
assistance in building eight log structures. These
improvements encouraged year around camping,
earning Camp Oyo the distinction one of the
nation's foremost Boy Scout camps.
Materials for the construction of the camp included
blighted chestnut timber cut from the nearby
forest and stone from Turkey Creek. Seven log
buildings, including the octagon shaped dining
hall and a frontier style blockhouse, remain in
use. The Simon Kenton Council, Boy Scouts of
America owns the camp. This marker is erected
in Memory of Lt. Gary Nolan Shy, who was killed
In action in Vietnam March 8, 1968. "Greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends."
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