Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Later next week Minnewaska Golf Club will be celebrating its 100th Anniversary. One hundred years is kind of a big deal, not too any operations can make that claim. The few that come to mind now are Eagle Bank, Glenwood State Bank and Peter’s Sunset Beach.

In looking through a box of old bills and papers at the course and at the Pope County Historical Society Museum this spring I found a number of interesting things.

One was a series of columns written by Bob Robards in the early 1990s. Bob was a long-time member and hard working volunteer. I believe his father was one of the people mentioned as a founder of the club.

Bob always walked with a bounce in his step and he would walk and carry his clubs over his shoulder well into his late 70s. He wrote about working as a caddy on the course back in the 30s when a caddy would get 25 cents for a round of nine holes. That would be 25 cents for carrying a golf bag a little over two miles on a trip that would take about two hours! Sometimes they would get tips.

The Northern Pacific had a rail line that ran across the north edge of the course. At one time the line ran from Morris to Little Falls. When I started golfing here in the early 1970s the line was just Morris to Villard where it would pick up grain from the Villard Elevator.

A train engine would go to Villard with a couple of grain cars to fill and return the same day. It was a slow trip, the tracks were not in good shape, so I think the speed of the train wasn’t more than five miles per hour through the golf course at least. One day I saw a guy hanging on the back of the last grain car and he would hop off every now and then to pick up a golf ball!

            At any rate parts of the fourth and fifth holes were on Northern Pacific land. The railroad graciously rented that land to the golf course for $1 a year. There were quite a few invoices from Northern Pacific in the box for the $1 annual rental fee which was usually sent in the fall. The club later purchased the property when the railroad had no use for it.

There were bills from the Acushnet Process Sales Company for Titleist Pro golf balls from 1946. The club ordered four dozen and paid $27.20 for them. Today four dozen Titleist Pro V golf balls would be over $200.

And there was a bill from a company that sold the little pencils people use to mark their score cards from 1953. The bill was for 10 gross of pencils with the club name on them. With shipping of 89 cents the total bill was $12.89. If you figure a gross as 144 pencils, that meant the club paid less than a penny each for the pencils.

And then there was a bill from Toro Manufacturing for $260 for a 21” greens mower dated April 7, 1947. I don’t know how many thousands of dollars a greens mower would be today but it would be larger than 21” at least!

Also interesting is a 1953 financial statement for the club. It had $4,620.74 in total revenue and total disbursements of $4,553.19. Its largest single expense of the year was labor on which it spent $1,922.75.

But it also managed to purchase some equipment including a Ford pickup truck (presumably used) for $75, an Oliver tractor for $300, and aerifier for $375, a four-wheel trailer for $19 and folding tables for $48. Oh, and a 75 foot hose for $58.10.

Other expenses included $58.06 for telephone for the entire year, postage and insurance for $79.56, machinery repairs and related expense of $481.60 and light and power of $115.36.

After all of that the club had $1,049.40 cash on hand at the end of the year (including carryover from the previous year).

More information on the 100th Anniversary celebration and club history will appear in next week’s Tribune.