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Pee Dee Area Council

The Pee Dee Area Council was a Boy Scouts organization located in northeastern South Carolina. The Indian Waters Council headquartered in Columbia, SC absorbed the council on August 1, 2022. The combined council, Indian Waters Council #553 continues to operate Camp Coker, and maintain an office in Florence, SC.

The Pee Dee Area Council Boy Scouts of America was founded in July 1928 with William E. Czarnitzki as the first Scout Executive. The council office was in the city hall in Darlington until it moved to Florence in the 1930s. Czarnitzki left the Pee Dee Area Council to take the job of Scout Executive of the Central South Carolina Council in his home town of Columbia c. March 1930.

Camp Coker is a Boy Scout Camp located just outside Society Hill, South Carolina. Camp Coker is operated by the Pee Dee Area Council. The fully accredited Camp Coker offers programs and activities including COPE, aquatics, canoeing, rowing, sailing, kayaking, handicrafts, rifle shooting, shotgun shooting, archery, ecology and environmental science, fishing, natural sciences, Scoutcraft, and Trailblazers (emphasis on Tenderfoot-to-First Class skills). Camp Coker is a year-round facility. In addition to the Boy Scout summer camp program held June to August each year, Camp Coker host a variety of events, from unit camping opportunities to training courses, Wood Badge, Council events, District events, and Order of the Arrow functions.

Czarnitzki returned to Camp Coker for the council anniversary camporee in November 1978. He and Wilbert H. Bernshouse (10 September 1913 – 26 July 2007) from Sumter were the only people from 1929 at the camporee in 1978.

According to the 1941 Camp Coker bulletin, the question of how the site for Camp Coker was chosen is answered by a story about a good pot of fish stew. The bulletin recounts that a group of men from Darlington were out looking for a site to be used by the Boy Scouts for camping. The men traveled to a grist mill dam on Spot Mill Creek near Society Hill. They had come for a fish stew but later decided that the land looked ideal for the camp site they had been searching for. The grist mill building was still there in 1943 but was torn down sometime after that.

Soon after the trip buildings were constructed as the site was developed. The original camp was built on 80 acres (320,000 m2) and called Camp Pee Dee after the name of the council. "Pee Dee" is the name of an Indian tribe from the area as well as a regional name for this part of the state. The Great Pee Dee River flows just miles from the camp. The Little Pee Dee River also flows through the council's geographic area.

The camp was located on the site of an old plantation. Spot Mill Creek runs through the heart of this site. In the 19th century a dam was built to form a pond for a grist mill. Turpentine was also extracted from some of the tall pine trees on the land.

In the original camp there were several buildings. The boys stayed in one of six screened-in cabins, each housing eight campers with four sets of bunk beds. The cabins were given names after famous Native American tribes such as the Apache, Sioux, Iroquois, Cherokee, Navajo and Seminole. In addition, there was one cabin for the cooks. The camp director, W. E. Czarnitzki, also had a cabin near the entrance to camp that served as an office. The cabins were screened in with canvas that could be dropped down in case of rain. They also had a front porch that extended out a couple of feet.

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