By BURTON SPEAKMAN
GLASGOW — A few months after one of the cabins burned down at the Rotary Scout Reservation near Temple Hill on Wood Store-Etoile Road, an effort has begun to try and rebuild.
Benjamin Dickinson, treasurer of the Rotary Scout Reservation Foundation, came Monday to Glasgow City Council seeking a donation from the city to help rebuild the lower cabin.
The lower log cabin burned on Oct. 18. The Kentucky State Fire Marshal’s Office investigated and it was determined the fire was caused by an electrical issue, he said.
“We’re not going to try and rebuild it as big as it was,” Dickinson said. “We’re going to need some help.”
There were more than 1,300 campers who came to the campground last year, he said. There are a lot of groups who use the camp including boy scouts, girl scouts, businesses within the community and others.
“A great number of those children were from Glasgow and Barren County,” Dickinson said.
The Rotary is attempting to raise $30,000 to rebuild around the chimney, the only part of the original building still standing, he said. The new cabin will be some type of log cabin. Thus far Rotary has received promises of $10,000 in donations. Rotary recently spent $50,000 on a renovation to the upper cabin at the campground.
The council did not commit Monday to providing any funding for the cabin. Mayor Darrell Pickett said the issue would be forwarded to the city’s finance committee.
“We’re going to get it rebuilt one way or another,” Dickinson said.
The hope is that it won’t take years to raise enough money to rebuild the lower cabin. This is the second time the cabin has burned down in 50 years. The Rotary Camp Reservation has been in Barren County since 1933, he said.
It is a beautiful camp with more than 200 acres and a four-acre pond that is stocked with fish so children can go out there and catch fish, Dickinson said.
“It’s the best camp in the state by far,” he said.
It has not been decided yet if the new cabin will have electrical wiring or not, Dickinson said.
Councilwoman Jeanne Scalise asked Dickinson if the Rotary would also be requesting private donations to help rebuild the cabin.
Dickinson said that donations of any size would be welcome.
Anyone interested in donating to help rebuild the cabin can do so by sending a check to Dickinson at 107 Trigg Court in Glasgow.
