Boy Scout Troop 1 (Troop 44)

🏛️The era

In the years just before World War I, Van Alstyne was a small Grayson County town on the blackland prairie of North Texas, close to the Red River and the Oklahoma line. Life ran on cotton, the railroad and the rhythms of church and school, and new ideas still arrived by mail and on the printed page.

Across the country, people were worried about what modern life was doing to boys. Cities were growing, farm chores were disappearing for many families, and reformers of the Progressive Era wanted young people to learn outdoor skills, self-reliance and civic duty. Scouting began in Britain and reached the United States in 1910. It answered that worry with uniforms, merit badges, camping and a promise to do a good turn daily.

The movement spread with remarkable speed, and sometimes the spark was as simple as a book. In Van Alstyne, a Scout storybook landed in the hands of three local boys. Within a few months their enthusiasm had turned into an official charter, at a time when Scouting in Texas was still in its infancy.

👥People & events

The story begins with three boys, Rowland Barnett, Otis White and Rae Nunnallee, poring over a Scout storybook in 1912. Rowland turned the excitement into a Christmas wish. The wish came true in March 1913, when the Van Alstyne troop received its charter, one of the earliest in Texas. It helped that Rowland's father, W.F. Barnett, was the town's school superintendent. He became the first scoutmaster, linking the new troop to the town's schoolhouse from the start.

Troop 1, as it was first called, did not keep Scouting to itself. It helped start troops in nearby Anna and Elmont, spreading the movement town by town across the prairie. From 1917, Van Alstyne's First United Methodist Church served as an official sponsor, and the church stayed a steady supporter for decades while other congregations and local groups joined in.

The troop's record of service is long. In the 1920s its boys joined a citywide cleanup meant to cut down on disease and insects, at a time when public health often depended on volunteers. In the 1940s the troop became Troop 44, and in 1948 the city gave land for a scout hut that is still used for meetings. In 1959 the Scouts helped carry the Pan American Games torch on its journey from Mexico City to Chicago. The troop also became the first integrated troop in the Texoma Valley Council.

Running through all of it is Rae Nunnallee, one of the boys who first opened that storybook. He stayed involved for 70 years, starting as a boy member and later serving in important roles both locally and nationally. The chapel at nearby Camp Grayson carries his name, a fitting tribute to someone whose childhood enthusiasm became a lifetime of service.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Scouting became one of the largest youth movements in American history. It did not grow because of national headquarters alone. It grew because thousands of small towns like Van Alstyne built troops of their own, with a schoolteacher or a church or a determined parent behind them. This troop's 1913 charter puts it among the pioneers of that grassroots spread in Texas.

The troop's integration is the most striking part of its story. For much of the twentieth century, Scouting in the South largely followed the segregation of the society around it. A troop that became the first integrated one in its regional council was quietly breaking with that pattern well before many institutions did. The marker does not give the date, but the milestone itself places this small-town troop within the larger national story of civil rights.

The troop's long life also shows how a national organization comes to feel local. The torch relay tied Van Alstyne to an international sporting event. The scout hut, the church sponsorship and the 70-year commitment of a single member tied it to its own streets. That combination of national ideals and hometown loyalty is what has kept American civic organizations going.

🧭If you visit

Van Alstyne is an easy detour off the US 75 corridor between the Dallas area and Sherman. It's a pleasant small-town stop for anyone driving north toward the Red River and Oklahoma. As you stand at the marker, picture three boys sharing one storybook and a scoutmaster who was also the school superintendent.

If you're traveling with kids, especially ones in Scouting today, this is a great stop for conversation. Ask them what a 1913 Scout might have learned, how the troop's community projects compare with service projects today, and what it meant for a troop to welcome every boy regardless of race.

Look around town for signs of the institutions that supported the troop, such as its churches, including the Methodist congregation that has backed it for more than a century. Pair this stop with other markers in Grayson County to see how a prairie railroad town grew up over the twentieth century.