Camp Siloam celebrates its centennial - Excavator Gear Co.,Ltd

In 1923, the Arkansas Baptist State Convention opened a primitive camp in western Benton County and called it the Arkansas Baptist Assembly.

Today, Camp Siloam is holding a centennial celebration at 1:30 p.m., with tours and recreational activities at 2:30 and a drama at 3:30. This evening at 7:30, there'll be a worship service and celebration followed by ice cream, cold drinks and fireworks.

Current and former staff members, campers, pastors and state convention officials are likely to attend, but everyone is welcome, organizers say.

One hundred years later, the Siloam Springs destination is modern, more comfortable, and has a new name over its archway -- Camp Siloam -- but its mission is essentially the same: Helping campers "find identity in Jesus Christ, purpose in his Kingdom, and their role in God's mission for the world."

"We've just finished up eight weeks of our summer camp; 6,600 kids came this summer, and we saw 472 make professions of faith," said camp Executive Director Jason Wilkie.

"Attendance data from 1983 until this year ... shows a little over 222,000 people have come to camp in those 40 years," he said.

Since 2006, the camp has been a separate, nonprofit organization -- Arkansas Baptist Assembly Inc., doing business as Camp Siloam.

"There's a rich history here," Wilkie said. "There's just a legacy and a plethora of stories and memories."

"There are people who have come for 100 years here ... who have had an encounter with Jesus here, and their lives have been changed. Or they were called to missions or full-time ministry. They can point to the spot where they met with their heavenly father," Wilkie said.

"Siloam" is the name of a pool that is mentioned in the Bible. The word itself is an English translation of a Greek translation of a Hebrew word -- shiloach -- sometimes translated as "sending forth."

The Arkansas Baptist Assembly actually dates to 1905 and was held, initially, at Brown Springs near Donaldson in Hot Spring County. Participants slept in tents.

After a rainstorm and flood washed out the event, organizers opted to hold it at what was then known as Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia in the years that followed.

Members of the Baptist Young People's Union loved the gathering, but not the sweltering summer heat.

"In 1922, according to some articles in 'The Baptist Advance,' these young people asked if they could have a permanent assembly ground ... in the mountains where it's cooler and closer to some tourist attractions," Wilkie said.

After considering Mena and Eureka Springs, the Baptists opted for Siloam Springs, which had offered them 160 acres, Wilkie said.

At that point, the roads to Siloam Springs were rudimentary, but rail lines were abundant.

"In the '20s and '30s, the Kansas City Southern Railroad offered a special rate to campers coming to the Baptist Assembly," Wilkie said. "Your parents could put you on a train in Little Rock and they'd drop you off at the Siloam Springs depot, and the camp would pick you up."

Early news articles about the camp mention tennis and golf tournaments, orchestra practices, speech contests and a "hymn-playing tournament."

While the Northwest Arkansas site was roughly 1,000 feet higher in elevation and roughly 2 degrees cooler, it was not, critics noted, centrally located.

In the late 1930s, an attempt was made to pick a more accessible site. The effort was ultimately rejected.

Over the past century, the camp has evolved and endured, operating during the Great Depression and despite World War II.

It closed, due to covid-19, in 2020, but reopened the following year.

In 1952, there was a food poisoning scare, with as many as 200 people reportedly falling ill. (The cause and severity of the outbreak, as well as the number of people affected, was a matter of some debate.)

After that, the dining hall kitchen was "completely reconstructed and equipped at a cost of about $10,000," according to the state convention's 1953 annual report.

"Working in close co-operation with the State Board of Health," a water filtering and treatment plant was also put in place, the report noted.

Freddie Pike, who served as camp director from 1983 to 1993, said the camp has modernized since his initial visit in 1970.

"The first time I went, there were no air-conditioned dormitories. They had big box fans and then, a few years later, they got these swamp coolers and stuck them in the windows," he said.

The facilities have been greatly upgraded since then, he noted.

"In the 11 summers that I was there [as director] we changed nearly every building on campus, built a big swimming pool, built a big worship center," he said.

Philanthropist Bernice Young Jones donated $1.4 million to build it.

"She was a sweetheart of a lady," Pike recalled.

In 2018, a new cafeteria was added. The last of the housing units got air conditioning in 2013, and there's currently enough room to accommodate 930 campers, Wilkie said.

While the buildings are bigger and better, Pike says the spiritual transformations are what matter most.

"So many kids got their lives turned around," he said. "I could tell stories, but I'd probably cry."

"Every summer ... there'll be anywhere from 350 to 450 kids make professions of faith to follow Christ and another big old handful surrendering to church vocations," he said.

"Siloam is about people. It's not about buildings and structures and land or property. It's about kids," he said.

Print Headline: A rich history

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