After being chartered in December 1936, the first formal lodge meeting was held early in 1937 in Wausau, Wisconsin. That same summer Samoset Council's Executive Board approved the Order of the Arrow as an official part of the council's Boy Scout camping program. As tradition indicates, a deer leaped through the first lodge ceremony. The name of the lodge, Tom Kita Chara, means "leaping buck" in the language of the Chippewa Indians, who lived in north-central Wisconsin. The lodge number is 96, meaning that it was the 96th lodge of the Order of the Arrow to be formed. The lodge name may have been briefly changed to "Tesomas" in 1938, or that may have been its nickname, but the name "Tom Kita Chara" was official by 1939 or 1940.