From Great Britain to Great Basin: A brief look at history of Scouting

Scouting in America, 100 years old this month, really has two founders: Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell and William D. Boyce. Baden-Powell, a British military hero during the Boer War in Africa and an avid outdoorsman, wrote Scouting for Boys in 1908 after finding English boys reading military manuals he previously had written.

Not long after Scouting began in England, Boyce, a Chicago publisher and explorer, lost his way in a dense London fog, according to a history on the Boy Scouts of America Web site.

A boy guided him but refused a tip, saying that as a Scout he would not take a money for doing a "good turn." That gesture inspired Boyce to meet with Baden-Powell and, on Feb. 8, 1910, Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in Washington, D.C.

Utah's first two troops, both designated Troop 1, were organized soon after.