Camp Timbers has been built upon a long camping history beginning with the first Saginaw YMCA camping session on Tawas Bay in 1914. Over the next several years as the YMCA searched for a permanent site, the camping program was located at Sharpsteirn Point near Bay Port, Houghton Lake, Mud Lake near Farwell, Round Lake near the Five Channels Dam, Bass Lake near Hale, and Cranberry Lake near Harrison.

On June 27, 1928 the Saginaw YMCA opened Camp O-Ge-Maw-Kee on Wagner Lake in the Huron National Forest between Rose City and Mio. It was named after a Chippewa Indian chief in the Saginaw area whose tribe had been ceded much of the land on which Saginaw was located and who also frequently hunted the land on which the camp was built. It operated there until 1964 when the YMCA was given the opportunity to purchase the former town of Piper from George Mason. While the new facility was under construction in 1965-66, the Saginaw YMCA operated cooperatively with the Bay City YMCA at Camp Iroquois. On May 28, 1967 under the direction of Dennis Ottosen, the new facility was completed and Camp O-Ge-Maw-Kee was reopened as Camp Timbers out of respect to the former town of Piper.