Lone Scout Magazine

The Glue in the Joints of the Organization

Frank Allen ("Dad") Morgan

Lone Scout magazine made its debut on October 30, 1915. Frank Allen ("Dad") Morgan was assigned as its first editor and Perry Emerson Thompson was assigned as the artist. Morgan immediately set out to fill the pages of the first issue.

Thompson (a.k.a. PET) produced the now famous "Lone Eagle" on the first issue of Lone Scout [see cover below). This image became and still is the symbolic stance of a Lone Scout. The illustration was drawn on the instruction of Frank Morgan. "I told Perry Emerson Thompson, the staff artist, this [Lone Indian] motif should be on the very first cover [of Lone Scout] and he agreed that it would be a great idea. He went out and found an Indian in Chicago, a professional model, who posed for him in that attitude—the upraised hands—and both Perry and the Indian model got quite a kick out of it."

The first issue of Lone Scout magazine

When the Lone Scouts of America was a separate organization the official magazine offered Lone Scouts the opportunity to contribute to the magazine and show off their talents in writing stories, poems and submitting drawings and art work. With its open pages "by boys, for boys," the new magazine offered ample space for fledgling and budding writers, artists and consumers of boy-produced fiction and illustrations. This truly was a boy's magazine and stands alone in the annals of youth magazines--no magazine yet has been produced for the youth of this nation, which commanded such fierce loyalty and devotion.

 

Perry Emerson Thompson (PET) at work at his
drawing board at the Long House

 

The Lone Scout, successor to Lone Scout, actually did an adequate job of trying to replace its predecessor, but unlike the days of the LSA, there just wasn't enough Lone Scouts within the BSA program to fill its pages. This was due to several reasons, one of which was the fierce dedication to Lone Scout magazine. As a result, many LSA Lone Scouts didn't join the Boy Scouts of America and most of those who did didn't display the same commitment to the new magazine as they had to Lone Scout. This unprecedented loyalty to a magazine, so prevalent before the LSA/BSA merger. The intense loyalty to Lone Scout just didn't translate into loyalty for The Lone Scout. Other reasons for The Lone Scout not enjoying the popularity of that was so evident with Lone Scout magazine include the drop-off in membership after the merger. Whatever reasons they may have had, a great many Lone Scouts of America Lone Scouts did not become members of the Boy Scouts of America's Lone Scouting program.

Neither The Lone Scout nor Boys' Life magazine, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America, ever managed to take the place Lone Scout magazine held in the hearts and minds of those boys who had been Lone Scouts of America Lone Scouts.