Merger With the Boy Scouts of America

It was W. D. Boyce's goal that the Lone Scouts of America should be self-supporting through the sales of Lone Scout. However, as the years passed, Boyce spent thousands of dollars of his own funds to keep it afloat. By 1924, the yearly drain on Boyce's finances became too much, so he negotiated a merger of the Lone Scouts of America with the Boy Scouts of America, which occurred in March 1924. Of the approximately 490,000 Lone Scouts that reregistered in 1922, about 45,000 Lone Scouts transferred to the Boy Scouts of America. This was primarily because the burden was on the BSA to recruit them and this was not easy.

At that time, few Lone Scouts read Boys' Life and were, perhaps, still stunned by the loss of Lone Scout and they were ill disposed toward another magazine.

The other probable reason was that many Lone Scouts lived in Canada, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere.

Armstrong Perry

Of those Lone Scouts who joined the BSA, their number peaked in 1926 at about 108,000. The BSA continued the Lone Scouts as a separate program element, replacing its less successful Pioneer Scout Program (which never had more than about 2,000 boys) as the official program for rural boys. It was the directed by the Lone Scout Division (see emblem at upper left), headed up by Armstrong Perry (lower right).