The Training Center began with a remodeled Villa kitchen and servants’ quarters that could be used as a dining hall and meeting room, and a bunkhouse that was built "to house 96 men." As plans were being made for the future and the popularity of Philmont grew, it was quickly evident that a lot more of everything would be needed.

In late 1950, after just the first summer of national conferences, the Boy Scouts of America budgeted nearly $500,000 for new facilities. By the summer of 1954 the Training Center boasted a new assembly hall and dining hall, a new conference building that could be divided into three rooms, duplexes for the conference faculty, and a new tent city. The basic configuration of today’s PTC was in place.

Each facility at PTC has a bit of history of its own.

The Assembly Hall was part of the original 1950-approved construction project. In the early days each week consisted of one large, single-topic conference. As attendance increased a large room that could handle all of the week’s conference participants was needed to replace the relatively small Villa conference/dining room. The ranch also had plans for square dances and other family activities.

The design of the Assembly Hall closely matched the original style of the Villa Philmonte, which ended at the Gazebo. Many Philmont visitors are not aware that it was an add-on by the BSA and think it was part of the original home.

The Assembly Hall has undergone only minor changes since 1954.

Dining Hall 1 and the PTC kitchen was also part of the original expansion that was completed in 1954. This greatly increased the capacity of the Training Center as conferences did not have to shut down and clear the room for meal preparation.

The dining hall was connected to the Assembly Hall with a partition for closing either facility off for concurrent use.

Like the Assembly Hall, Dining Hall 1 matched the style of the Villa.

Dining Hall 2 was built in 1957 and with two serving lines was called Dining Hall 2 and 3 for many years. Participants came in the end doors and left out the center doors.

Heat was added in 2001 so that Dining Hall 2 could be used year-around.

Originally built as part of the 1950-54 project, the original structure only included what is now the Bent and Beaubien classrooms. The building originally had three doors on the porch and accordion walls so that it could be separated into one, two or three classrooms. This building gave the Training Center the facilities to host more than one conference at a time or to have break-out sessions.

The building was remodeled in 1968 when the National Executive Institute was brought to Philmont to provide an additional location for basic professional training. Beaubien was made into one large room and the Miranda room, restrooms, and an office for the NEI staff was added. The storage room was modified to provide media capabilities, including film projection into Beaubien and Miranda.

These rooms were named in after important historical figures in Philmont county history: pioneers and landowners Guadalupe Miranda and Charles Beaubien, and New Mexico territorial governor Charles Bent.

The old NEI office became a conference faculty office for many years and is now the office of the Philmont Staff Association.

Maxwell was added in 1965 as part of another Training Center expansion. Maxwell could be divided into two conference rooms with an accordion wall.

The room was named for pioneer landowner Lucien Maxwell.

The PTC office complex was originally built in 1942 as a bunkhouse for visitors to Philmont. The building had a small office on the south end, restrooms, and 10 sleeping rooms that would accommodate 96 men.

At times in the 40's two or more of the bunk rooms were converted to meeting rooms, but this drastically cut into the housing possibilities. In the 50's the north end was used as a nurse’s station.

In 1950 the office portion was expanded, but the bunkhouse remained in use for 50 summers (1942-1991) as housing for staff and single male faculty members. In 1992 the last sleeping rooms were converted into the Apache conference room, a staff work room, and storage.

The first permanent conference room was converted from the nurse’s station on the north end of the building. Originally called Rayado, this room was first used in 1957 and enlarged in 1992. In 1998 the room was renamed Kit Carson to match the historical figure theme of the rest of the rooms and to avoid confusion after the facilities at Rayado began to be used by the Training Center. Several individuals had driven down to Rayado to find conferences when told they would be meeting in Rayado.

The second conference room was added in 1993 and was called Apache. In 1998 this room was renamed for George Webster, again to fit the historical figure theme.

For many years the staff at Camping Headquarters moved into the Training Center office for the winter and this was the program office for the entire ranch.

In 2001-2002 the building underwent a major renovation.

East Tent City was the first tent city at PTC and was built for the summer of 1951. The current tent city office was built in 1954 along with new shower/wash houses. The early shower houses were called service buildings and included washing machines, stoves, and refrigerators so that "mom could have all the comforts of home." The service buildings were remodeled in the mid-1980's.

Before the Handicraft Lodge was built the East Tent City Office included a trading post and a craft area.

Capacity at PTC was doubled with the addition of South Tent City in 1957.

The laundry building, which houses coin-operated washers and dryers for conference participants and a large laundry for the ranch operation was built in the mid 1980's. Prior to that each tent city service building included a laundry.

Originally built in 1957 as a Health Lodge, this building was later converted into a Nursery and family program office. The yard on the south side was fenced and had a playground. It remained a Nursery until 1994 when the new Small Fry Center opened. In 1994 and 1995 it was used as housing for cooks and senior dining hall staff. Beginning in 1996 it became housing for the PTC seasonal management staff.

The three duplexes on the greensward are the original duplexes built by the BSA for faculty housing in 1954. The others were built as part of ensuing expansions, with the last built in 1999 in an area that used to be the PTC staff parking lot. Heating units were added in 1996 so that the duplexes could be used for conferences at any time of the year.

With the increased need for off-season roofed housing and an increasing number of conferences and faculty with families, the Multi-Plex was built in 2003.

The Cottage is an original Phillips building, but was a kennel for the family dogs in those days. The BSA converted it into a summer residence in 1954.

In 1996 the Ranch Committee began the development of a long-range plan to address the needs of the Ranch's facilities for the new century. One of the needs was additional classroom space at PTC.

Unfortunately, two of the Training Center’s seven classrooms were inadequate to meet the growing needs of conferences. One (Bent) was large enough to accommodate a conference of no more than 12 participants. The original Villa conference room was not handicapped accessible, had no restroom facilities, and was putting a strain on the aging Villa.

The committee determined that the construction of a new building that included a large (100 person), dividable conference room and storage facilities would meet the needs of the Training Center for the near future and would allow for alternative uses for the existing rooms.

The family of Walter M. "Buster" Brown, III, a long-time Scouter and member of the Ranch Committee, decided that assisting the Ranch in building this facility would be a fitting tribute to the continuing dedication and devotion that Buster had to Scouting and Philmont.

In 1998 the building was completed and the twin classrooms were named after Waite and his twin Wiate Phillips (who died when the boys were 18.) Like Maxwell, and Beaubien/Bent before 1968, the rooms can be separated by a movable wall and can be made into one large classroom.

The space occupied by the Villa Museum was originally servant’s quarters for the Villa. In 1942 the space was converted into a dining room and classroom for the first training conferences at Philmont. With the addition of the 1954 dining hall the room was used exclusively as a classroom until 1997. In 1998 it was replaced by the Phillips classrooms and was converted by Villa Superintendent Nancy Klein into a museum of the Phillips family and their years on the ranch.

The Small Fry Center was completed in 1994. The funds to build the center were provided by a gift from the estate of prominent California livestock man Loren Charles Bamert.

In 1957 the current structure was built for "handicrafts, movies, and family parties" and was called the Recreation Building. The items carried at the Trading Post were limited so in 1996 the trading post was closed to give the craft operation more room. Another consideration in the decision to close the trading post was to encourage PTC families to go across the street to the camping headquarters trading post. Many had left Philmont having not seen that part of the operation and the hundreds of Scouts arriving each day. In 1998 there was another expansion creating an enlarged pottery and kiln area.

After the summer of 1971 Camp Urraca, built in 1965 and located on the road to the Stockade at the present Badger Camp, was closed and replaced by Rocky Mountain Scout Camp. In 1992 the Boy Scout camping program was discontinued and moved back to PTC. The National Junior Leader Instructor Camp moved from Rayado to Rocky Mountain Scout Camp in 1994.

The PTC Chapel was built in 1959 by the Committee on Protestant Service of the Boy Scouts of America, chaired by Judge Charles W. Froessel of New York. Funds to build the chapel, and the chapel at camping headquarters that is now the Ranger Office, came from members of the committee and Protestant services at the 1959 National Training Conference and the 1957 National Scout Jamboree. A dedication was held on August 2, 1959 during the Protestant Workshop on Scouting conference.

The COPE (Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience) ropes and challenge course was built in part by a grant from the Order of the Arrow beginning in 1996. It was intended to be a model course with a wide variety of elements for training and local council review.

The Hunting Lodge was one of Waite Phillips’ mountain cabins. In the early years it was the site of the Cimarroncito Camp and where John Westfall wrote the words to the "Philmont Hymn" in 1945. Concerns about the proximity of Cimarroncito facilities to the source of the Cimarron drinking water convinced the Scouts to close the camp and move it to the present Cimarroncito location.

For many years the Lodge was used as a staff rendezvous. Various staff groups used the Lodge for staff celebrations and it fell into general disrepair. In 1994-1995 $50,000 was spent to restore the building and repair the sagging roof. There was no interest in making it a new backcountry camp so the Training Center took it over. Furniture found in the building and other locations on the ranch was restored and the Lodge was put back in use. The Lodge was used as an overnight camping spot for the Muchachas program (11-13 year old girls), a day-hike destination for spouses, and outdoor training. It was the site of the first Venturing Powderhorn course in 1999. It was also often used by the Kanik winter camping program as a base.

In 1999 a historical program and tour at the Lodge was proposed for both Training Center participants and passing crews. Control of the Hunting Lodge was passed to the camping operation and the camp and the historical program was offered beginning in 2000.

In October 1948 the second Wood Badge training course in America had been conducted at Cimarroncito. For Philmont’s second course in 1949, a new Wood Badge Lodge was built at the homestead site of early Colfax County settler, Paul F. Zastrow. The Lodge was remodeled in 1960.

The Wood Badge sundial at Zastrow was a gift from the Boy Scouts of England to the Boy Scouts of America in 1950. Its inscription says "Presented by the Scouts of the British Commonwealth and Empire in commemoration of forty years of Scouting by the Boy Scouts of America." The sundial was originally located at Schiff Scout reservation to recognize Schiff as the symbolic home of Wood Badge in the U.S. When the BSA closed Schiff in 1979, the sundial was moved to Zastrow to recognize the it as the second home of Wood Badge in the U.S.

Wood Badge courses were held at the site until 2002 when it became part of the backcountry mountain-biking program. The heritage of training and Wood Badge is part of the current camp program.

One of the most historical places on the ranch - in terms of both New Mexico and Boy Scout history - Rayado, started out as Rayado Rancho Base Camp and then Carson-Maxwell Base Camp. It was one of several base camps for various camping and hiking expedition programs for many years. From 1946 to 1993 it was also the home of junior leader and Explorer training. Beginning in 1998, in an effort to expand conference offerings and provide a place for outdoor-oriented sessions, some conferences were held at the Rayado Dining Hall. The Dining Hall was also used to allow meetings to be held in the summer without interfering with conferences.

The original PTC Program Bowl was located behind East Tent City to the north of the staff area, near where the warehouse and shop are today. In 1981 Philmont decided to build new program bowls for both PTC and camping and the PTC bowl was erected in its current location. The bowl was rebuilt in 2007.

The original Stockade was built in 1949 at a cost of $5,000 and was closer to the turnaround than the current building. In 1960 it was destroyed by what was believed to be a tornado and was rebuilt at its current location. The Stockade has been used off and on by treks and the camping program at Philmont, including as the starting location for Kit Carson Treks and the ending location for Rayado Treks and Ranger training. For many years the site was used by the Cub Scout programs at PTC as a day camp location. After the Boy Scout program moved back to PTC in 1992 the Stockade was where a weekly Boy Scout overnight campout was held.

Polo was a popular sport among the ranchers of the area and Waite Phillips had one of the best facilities in the area. The barns included storage, stalls for horses, and homes for the wranglers. A polo field and track was located to the southeast of the barns.

The small fry center at the Polo Barns was opened in 1956. It was closed after the 1993 summer and moved a the new building near the Handicraft Lodge at PTC.

In 1996 Philmont hired a food service company and the small fry center was renovated and turned into housing for their employees.

The original pony ring was located where the staff tent city is today, in the middle of an apple orchard. From 1956 to 1994 a pony ring was located at the Polo Barns. Photos of children riding the ponies with Tooth of Time Ridge in the background were often featured in magazines and promotional brochures.

In 1995 Ranch Superintendent Bob Ricklefs proposed building a new ring closer to the new Small Fry Center so that the youngsters would no longer need to be bussed or have cross the street to ride ponies. This also allowed parents to watch their children ride and children to ride more often.

Two shelters at PTC, one near the nature trail and one near the duplexes, were built in 1997. The first was built with a fire pit to provide a location for Scouting skills training and a shelter for family program groups on the nature trail. The second, sometimes called the Pavilion, was built to provide a shelter for faculty bar-b-ques and a rainy day location for family program groups.

In 2004 a new, much larger pavilion was erected for faculty bar-b-ques and the old pavilion was moved to the south end of East Tent City.

Many Scouters and families coming to PTC want to go on a hike. After all, that is what usually comes to mind when one thinks of Philmont. Many hiking opportunities were offered on the mid-week day off, including at times Zastrow, Hunting Lodge, Window Rock, Indian Writings, the T-Rex print, Lovers Leap, the Tooth of Time, and early on even Baldy.

Some of these hikes were and are beyond the physical capabilities of many participants. But also, large numbers of PTC day hikers were negatively impacting the wilderness experience of Scouts on backpacking treks.

In 1987 the Training Center designed and built a special trail just for PTC in an area not used by treks. This trail presented wonderful views and a variety of vegetation zones. To make it even more attractive, a special patch was created.

Over the years the trail has been expanded and rebuilt - most recently by the Philmont Staff Association.