The plain concrete block building in the rear of the old county jail on North Street in Elkton was built in the middle of World War II. Elkton needed a building to serve as a center for Boy Scout activities, so troop leaders looked around and located some unused county land just off North Street.
Representatives of the Kiwanis Club asked permission to erect a one-story structure with a basement on the county-owned space. The commissioners agreed and the Scout headquarters was dedicated on Oct. 10, 1943.
In 1957, as the Cold War heated up, the county needed a headquarters for its new Civil Defense agency, which had responsibility for coordination operations in the event of a nuclear attack. So the building was handed over to the disaster agency as the basement provided the best option for a control center.
Once Civil Defense moved to the courthouse in the second half of the 1960s, the structure served the county in other ways.
It was used in the 1970s as a live-in/work-out facility for inmates who worked during the day. This helped relieve the badly overcrowded jail, and later it provided office space for Cecil County’s Purchasing Dept.
Having gone from the Scout building to the headquarters for Civil Defense, the building was demolished in 2013 after the county sold the property to the North Street Senior Residences, an apartment complex for seniors.
