Wing Park Golf Course facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Wing Park Golf Course
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 Location in Illinois
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| Location | 1000 Wing St., Elgin, Illinois |
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| Area | 52 acres (210,000 m2) |
| Built | 1908 |
| NRHP reference No. | 09000027 |
| Added to NRHP | February 18, 2009 |
The Wing Park Golf Course in Elgin, Illinois is a very special place. It is known as the "oldest and best preserved nine-hole public golf course" in all of Illinois. This course was built a long time ago, in the early 1900s, when golf was becoming very popular around Chicago.
The golf course got its name from William H. Wing. He was a kind person who gave the land for a park in 1902. Later, when a new electric company line was built nearby, the city of Elgin decided to turn part of the park into a golf course. A famous golf course designer named Tom Bendelow created the course. He designed more than 600 golf courses in his lifetime! Wing Park Golf Course first opened on September 5, 1908. It has been open and used for golf ever since. In 1912, a group called the Wing Park Golf Club was started to help manage the course. Because of its history, the course was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
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The Story of Golf in America
Golf is a sport that came to America from Scotland in the 1890s. At first, it was mostly a sport for very rich people. Wealthy individuals, like William Kissam Vanderbilt, even built their own golf courses.
A stockbroker named Charles B. Macdonald learned golf while studying in Scotland. He built the first golf course in the Chicago area in 1892. It was called the Onwentsia Club. A year later, he built the Chicago Golf Club. This was the first 18-hole golf course in the entire country!
The Chicago Golf Club was a huge success. It made many people want to build more courses. By 1900, there were 26 golf courses in Chicago and its nearby towns. Golf then started to become popular for everyone, not just the rich. In 1895, New York City opened the first public golf course in the U.S. at Van Cortlandt Park. Chicago followed this idea in 1899, opening the Jackson Park Golf Club for everyone to play.
How Wing Park Golf Course Began
Elgin, Illinois, was founded in the 1830s. It became an important town for making things after the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad arrived in 1850. Big factories like the Elgin National Watch Company and Gail Borden Condensed Milk brought many jobs. This made the town grow a lot.
Around the year 1900, people started working fewer hours. This gave them more free time for fun activities. The first golf course in Elgin was the Elgin Country Club. It was a private, nine-hole course built in 1901. Tom Bendelow also designed this course. Bendelow was a big supporter of public golf courses. He even taught people how to design them in college.
Wing Park was named after William H. Wing. His family had lived in Elgin since 1846. William Wing was a successful attorney. In 1902, he gave 121.5 acres of his land to Elgin. He wanted it to be a public park for everyone to enjoy. The park officially opened on August 2, 1903. It had both open farmland and natural woods.
The park stayed mostly undeveloped until 1907. That's when the Elgin and Belvidere Electric Company extended its line close to the park. This led to plans for building the Wing Park Golf Course. Elgin hired Bendelow to design it. He planned the entire course in just one day! The course was built in only two months and cost $1,250. It was designed to be simple, so new golfers could easily play. The course used the natural hills and land. When Wing Park Golf Course opened on September 5, 1908, Elgin became the smallest city in the country with a public golf course.
Growing Popularity and History
The Wing Park Golf Club was started on September 14, 1912. It had 88 original members. They bought land across from the course entrance. The next year, they built a clubhouse. It was a cozy American Craftsman style house with a porch facing the golf course. The club sold 200 more memberships for $25 each.
By 1921, Wing Park was so popular that Elgin had to make a rule. People who didn't live in Elgin couldn't play on weekends. But non-residents still came to play. So, in the mid-1920s, Elgin started charging a fee. Residents paid 50 cents, and non-residents paid a dollar. This helped make sure residents had more chances to play.
In 1926, there were plans to buy more land. The idea was to make Wing Park an 18-hole course. However, these plans stopped because of the Great Depression. The course was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 18, 2009. It was even featured by the National Park Service as a special historic property. Today, Wing Park is the second-oldest golf course still in use in Illinois. Only Jackson Park is older. It is also the oldest course that still looks like it did when it was first built.
The Holes of Wing Park
In the early days, each hole on the golf course had its own special name. Here are the names and lengths of the nine holes:
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