Firecrafter Plaza
Near Indianapolis, Indiana
This plaza honors Firecrafter, one of the oldest Scout honor societies in the country, and it was born right here in Indiana.
In nineteen nineteen, at a camp near Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, a scoutmaster named Francis Belzer created two camping ranks, Camper and Woodsman, to reward boys who proved themselves in the outdoors. The next summer, in nineteen twenty, he added a third and highest rank, Firecrafter, and four young woodsmen became the first to earn it.
The idea spread quickly through Midwestern councils, especially in Indiana and Illinois, an honor camper tradition much like the better-known Order of the Arrow. More than a century later, Firecrafter still operates, mostly within the Crossroads of America Council, keeping alive a ritual of fire, woodcraft, and service that started with a handful of Indianapolis Scouts.
