He was disabled, his back was deformed,[2] he walked with a limp, and he suffered constant joint pain.

[3]: 34, 41, 121–2  He donated the land on which Akron Area Council built Camp Manatoc, which opened in 1923.

[3]: 83 [5]: 8 [6]: 3 [2] Butler grew up in Akron and acquired a love for camping and the outdoors through George Atwater,[7] his pastor at the Church of Our Savior.

David Atwater, who was George's son, wrote in 1980: I knew Mr. Karl Butler and he always recalled that as a boy he went camping with my father, the Rev.

George Atwater, who led an organization known as the Young Crusaders who camped on the Hale Farm near Peninsula .... My father used to think that the good times Karl Butler had there influenced him in his generosity to the Scouts and to Manatoc.

[3]: 83 After attending Buchtel College (which later became the University of Akron), Butler became the personal aide to the senator from Ohio, Charles W.F.

[3]: 37  He left Cuba and returned to Akron by early 1911 and went to work in the clay products family business.

One of those leaders was Parke Kolbe, the President of the University of Akron and Karl Butler's close friend.

Kolbe mentioned the need for a camp to Butler, who offered the use of his land near Peninsula, Ohio, just north of Akron, in what is now the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

[12]: 21, 42 [6]: 3 By 1931, the leaders of the council realized that despite the economy, they needed to move forward with raising the $100,000 or lose the camp property.

They also realized that they had outgrown the present camp and needed to build an entirely new one, which would be located on the southern part of the property.

[12]: 93 Butler fell ill in early December 1926 during his tenure as president of the Akron Area Council, BSA.

He had plans to leave for Washington DC on December 11 to attend a dinner with friends from his days with Senator Dick.

In 2023, Great Trail Council celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the opening of Camp Manatoc.