Camp Margaret Bates opened in 1954 on Valley View Road in Macedonia.
In 1956, Chrysler Corporation decided to build a stamping plant in Twinsburg. Trains were needed to bring in raw material and take out the finished products. The Pennsylvania Railroad needed to run a track from their main line up to Twinsburg. Their route would take them through the new camp, right through the area known as the Paw Paw Patch. When the council indignantly turned the offer down, the railroad informed them that they could then take it anyway by eminent domain. A deal was struck and many a young girl was lulled to sleep at camp listening to the lonely wail of a train whistle in the (not too distant) distance. The payment may have helped pay part of the money for the emergency expansion of Camp Julia Crowell in 1957.