100 years ago on 29 April 1918, this advertisement from a local theater appeared showing probably the very first movie about scouting.
The Highland Theater was one of several movie theaters in Guthrie at the time, cinemas being a new source of audio visual entertainment in the early 20th century.
This is what the Highland Theater looks like today. It’s Stacy’s Place at 111 West Harrison Ave (image from Google Maps streetview).
At one time it was “Granny Had One” for decades.
The Boy Scouts to the Rescue shows a production date of 1917. My research was not able to find a copy and the celluloid film stock of this silent movie may have been lost to history. There is an older movie, the first known scouting-related movie – produced in the United Kingdom in 1908 and released in 1909.
“Scouts to the Rescue” can be seen today courtesy of the World Scouting YouTube Channel hosted by the World Organization of the Scout Movement.
What we know today as the “Guthrie News Leader” was known until the 1990’s as the “Guthrie Daily Leader.” Here is the headline of 29 April 1918 courtesy of the public domain archive stored at the Oklahoma Historical Society. The theater ad appears on page 3.
The United States entered World War 1 just a year before (6 April 1917) and the headlines show news of the brutality of the conflict.
The same year, 1918, the Girl Scouts of the USA release “The Golden Eaglet” the earliest girl scouting related film.