About Us
The Allen H. Stewart Lions Camp is rife with history – with several of its buildings having historical significance.
The camp was founded in 1925 by the Lions Club of Casper as the Lions Recuperation Camp.
At that time it was a day camp specifically for undernourished children, located on the Kimball Ranch on Elk Horn Creek. The children participated in outdoor activities and received meals.
Thirty to forty children attended each day. Most children who attended gained weight and were in better health after a summer spent at the camp.
In 1928, Lion Ed Murane arranged for a lease on a more accessible site, located 11 miles outside the city limits on Casper Mountain.
This new site has been the permanent home of what would become the Allen H. Stewart Lion’s Camp’s since 1935, when the Lions Club of Casper renewed their lease with the City of Casper for a period of 99 years.
Local Lions and community volunteers bulldozed a road, and built dormitories, a cook shack, nurses’ quarters, a 500-gallon water tank and other buildings.
From 1933 to 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA), Depression-era federal programs built a few buildings that are still in use and made improvements to the site. The camp continued to be used for underprivileged children until it closed during WWII.
The camp reopened in 1946 as a camp for the blind under an agreement with the Wyoming State Department of Education. The first blind camp was held in 1946.
In 1966, the Casper Lions renamed the camp to honor Allen H. Stewart, a Lions Club Past President, District Governor, and International Counselor who had passed away in a snow storm in the Big Horn Mountains.
The Camp became a Wyoming Lions Club project in 1979.
The Camp has had and continued to have a storied history.
Federal funding, from the Department of Education, once helped subsidize the cost of our summer school for the blind, but this was discontinued in 2007.
Since that time, the Lions Club of Casper, Lions Clubs from around the State, and the Lions of Wyoming Foundation have funded the free summer program. Financial support is from club donations, grants, memorials, rentals, and personal support.
The Wall of Honor, which is the wall constructed of bricks and stones located in front of the dining hall, is a permanent display of the names of contributors who made tax deductible donations from $100 to $1,000 to the nonprofit Camp.
In the spring of 2012, the Casper Lions turned the camp ownership over to the Lions of Wyoming Foundation. The Foundation continues to operate the camp to this day.