The year was 1914, three years before the San Francisco Council was officially organized. In San Francisco’s Chinatown, a group of eight young boys read through a worn copy of the Boy Scout Handbook.  As they thumbed through the pages in the play yard of the Chinese Methodist Church, the boys were thoroughly intrigued and inspired by what they saw in this new youth movement.  Something that was non-existent In Chinatown and in San Francisco at the time. They eagerly studied the sketches, the diagrams, and read the printed words. From that moment, they knew they wanted to be Boy Scouts.

These eight boys, the charter members of San Francisco Troop 3, were Lim Wong, Edward Lee, Tim Wong, Bing Moy, Stephen Moy, Nelson Wong, King Lee and Chingwah Lee. It was Chingwah Lee’s interest in Scouting that had prompted him to obtain the  worn handbook and it was he who sparked the interest of Scouting in the other boys. They Invited Lim J. Kwong, an engineering student attending the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy to be Scoutmaster and B.Y. Chu, a progressive Secretary of the Chinese YMCA, was nominated as the Troop Adviser. 

Troop 3 was the first all Chinese troop in the World and Chingwah Lee would later act as Scoutmaster for thirty years. 

The next year, San Francisco Troop 12 was organized and performed for President Taft at the Panama-Pacific Exposition which was held at the San Francisco Marina. The boys from Troop 12 recognized the lack of professional guidance and wrote to the National Boy Scout headquarters in New York, stating their predicament. Feld Scout Representative Harry Cross of the Los Angeles Council (the closest organized council at the time) was notified. He came to San Francisco and helped assemble a group of prominent civic seaters to plan a local council.

On November 16, 1916 thirty-three men (including Raymond O Hanson, John McGregor and Frank Turner) met at the Palace Hotel at Market and New Montgomery Street to discuss the need for an organized youth movement in San Francisco. From that meeting they decided to apply for an official charter with the Boy Scouts of America.

On January 15, 1917 the San Francisco Council was officially organized into a council of the Boy Scouts of America. The council initially started with a total of 10 troops (including Troop 3 and Troop 12) and 193 Scouts. Only one year later that number would grew to 60 Troops and 1704 Scouts. The San Francisco Council when it was first organized had 8 scout districts which also included District 8 (San Mateo, Hillsborough, Burlingame and Lomita Park).

As early as February of 1917, the San Francisco Council was already looking for a permanent location for a camp site to hold a Scout Training Camp.  Three locations were of interest to the Council Executive Board, an 800 acre site near Redwood City, a 143 acre site in Los Altos and also a site in Sonoma County near the town of Cazadero on the George S. Montgomery property called, the Cazadero Redwoods.  Nothing would happen for a few years, but the site in Sonoma County would eventually turn into the summer training site for the council from 1920 until 1924.

In June of 1917 the first Summer Training Camp would be held over in Marin County in the town of Mill Valley on the property of Dr. Alexander Warner.  The site was known as Warner Canyon.  In 1918 the Summer Training Camp was moved to the town of Olema at Pt Reyes on the Howard Ranch.  

In 1918, Francis B Hayne became the first Eagle Scout of the San Francisco Council. Francis would go on to become the Wrestling captain at Harvard University during his sophomore year.  Mr. Hayne would go on the become a prominent Architect.  1918 also saw the founding of the San Francisco Scout Band.