Owatonna history
Camp Owatonna actually started out as Camp Ropioa (rope-ee-OH-uh). It was founded by Colonel
George Stanley back in 1922 as a summer camp for boys attending Christian Science Sunday School.
The camp was located just up the hill from Camp Newfound for girls – on rolling fields and woodlands
that stretch down to Long Lake. In the early 1940s, Ropioa was sold and became a private camp
for boys of all faiths. Finally, in 1955, the camp was dissolved.
It was then that a group of former campers, led by Frank Hayden Connor, Sr., formed a not-for-profit corporation to purchase the camp, and renamed it Owatonna, a Native American word meaning "straight as an arrow." Today, Owatonna campers still gather for breakfast in Ropioa's original wood-and-stone lodge before heading out for days filled with fun, friends, and memories to last a lifetime!
