The story of golf in the northern Minnesota city of Cass Lake does not start with an attempt to lure the U.S. president to town.
But a story has to start somewhere, so here we go …
On March 11, 1927, Henry George Bingham of St. Paul composed a letter, typewritten on paper carrying the letterhead of the St. Paul office of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, to M.N. Koll, secretary of the Cass Lake Commercial Club. Bingham, who owned a resort lodge on the western shore of Cass Lake, informed Koll that he had heard President Calvin Coolidge had been invited to spend his summer vacation in northern Minnesota — at the Woodhome Lodge, an hour southeast of Cass Lake on Roosevelt Lake near the city of Outing.
Bingham thought Cass Lake — and The Bingham, as his lodge was known — would be a superior presidential destination. He told Koll so in his letter and implored him to write to Coolidge, inviting him to Cass Lake for the summer.
The next day, Koll composed a letter that would soon be eastbound. Today, a copy of it rests in the archives of the Minnesota History Center. The letter began:
“Subject — Summer White House.
“My dear President:
“The late Edmund L. Pennington, had a summer home here for several years. He was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Minneapolis Saint Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway when he died about a year ago. It was sold to Mr. H.G. Bingham shortly afterwards by Mr. Pennington’s Estate.
“It is modern. It has very choice equipment. It is half a mile from the village limits. Has telephone, electric lights, $5,000.00 cabin launch suitable for the waters of the lake system here. Has an east frontage, fine bathing beach, stands on a bluff overlooking the lake facing the famous Star Island. Has equipment to care for over thirty guests. Has both separate lodges and sleeping rooms in the main building. Has a golf links adjacent. It is quiet. It is situated among the pines.”
Koll listed more Cass Lake organizations and assets, including the Consolidated Chippewa Indian Agency, and proclaimed that “we can lay claim to a high average of intellectuality in the community.” The sum total of the letter was to invite Coolidge to spend part of his summer at The Bingham.
Off the letter went to Washington, D.C.
Koll received acknowledgement of the letter’s arrival in correspondence dated March 15 and written on White House stationery. The White House’s reply was noncommittal.
But ultimately, no dice. On May 31, the White House formally announced, to great fanfare from Midwestern newspapers of the day, that Coolidge and his travel contingent — including his wife, Grace, and her pet porcupine, Betty — would spend their summer at Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Cass Lake’s loss, Black Hills’ gain. Henry Bingham, Mathias N. Koll and Cass Lake Golf Club (Minnesota lost course No. 210) went on about their 1927 daily routines, sans the Coolidges and Betty.
In a sporting sense, perhaps it’s just as well. Silent Cal might not have enjoyed himself at Cass Lake Golf Club. “Coolidge played out of obligation and his game reflected it,” Golf Advisor reported in a 2014 story, “as he usually required double-digit shots on each hole.”
CLUB ORIGINS
Cass Lake Golf Club’s nine-hole, sand-greens course had not yet begun its second season when Bingham and Koll composed their letters. The club was organized in 1925 and opened play on and near Bingham’s property in 1926.
“It has long been the desire of the people of Cass Lake Village,” read a Cass Lake Times article in July 1925, “to add to its many other attractions — golf grounds.”
A committee of 10 businessmen was formed to search for such grounds. A.C. Anderson of Hibbing, Minn., described as “a golf expert,” was invited to visit Cass Lake and offer opinions on a suitable tract. The decision was made by the newly formed Cass Lake Amusements Inc. to employ land on the “Sam Fairbanks Allotment,” as the Times put it, “or that part of this allotment that lies between the ‘Boat Landing Road’ the Soo Line railway and Cass Lake.”
“This is a beautiful round, rolling, covered with a vigorous second growth of timber, and having a splendid outlook upon Cass Lake, the several islands, the Minnesota National Forest and practically all of Pike Bay.”
Eat your heart out, Cal. And Betty.
Cass Lake Golf Club’s prehistory began with four holes that lay on the Bingham Lodge property before the club was organized. After the club organized on June 28, 1926, five more holes were built after the acquisition of adjacent land on what the Times referred to as “the Newsome property.”
If all of this is leading to the notion that Henry Bingham was the father of golf in Cass Lake, I’ll just say I don’t think that’s true.
I never found a connection between Bingham and the game of golf. But his predecessor on the lodge property, Pennington, well, that’s a different story.
Edmund Pennington was born in 1848 to an English father and Scottish mother. He rose through the railway ranks to become Soo Line president. In 1910, Pennington County in northwestern Minnesota was named for him. Pennington lived in Minneapolis’ prestigious Lowry Hill neighborhood, and his name is linked in published biographies with names such as Pillsbury and Bovey, both residents of Wayzata’s well-to-do Ferndale neighborhood. (Charles Bovey was a founder of Woodhill Country Club in 1915, and much of the entire Ferndale populace was connected to golf.)
Two other nuggets further connect Pennington to golf: The executor of his estate after his death in 1926 was one Clive T. Jaffray of Minneapolis, a founder of that city’s Minikahda Club and a frequent champion in the early years of Minnesota golf; and a 1923 biography of Pennington lists him as a member of both Minikahda and Duluth’s Northland Country Club.
I would bet a stringer of plump Cass Lake walleye that Pennington built four golf holes on his northern Minnesota estate before dying, after which Bingham became the land owner.
Summertime entries in the Cass Lake Times of 1926 tell of Cass Lake Golf Club’s preparations in building a course. On Sept. 2, 1926, the newspaper reported, “The first casualty on the Cass Lake Golf Links occurred last week, while Mr. and Mrs. C.W. Hough were playing. Mrs. Hough swung on the ball, (Cyril says it was the prettiest shot she has made this year) and Cyril admiring the shot didn’t move fast enough and the ball hit him in the eye, laying his cheek open.”
LOCATION … LOCATION?
If “close” counts only in horseshoes, hand grenades and finding lost golf courses, then I suppose I can take credit, because I can come close to pinpointing the site of the long-abandoned Cass Lake Golf Club.
But I can’t do better than that. If you want me to tell me exactly where the first tee was, or whether it was a long walk from the ninth green back to the clubhouse, not gonna happen.
The following is, I guess, equal parts facts and guesses, likelihoods and unlikelihoods, about Cass Lake Golf Club’s site:
— The Cass Lake Times story from 1925 identified the site as between the “Boat Landing Road,” the Soo Line railway and the city proper. That would be the northeastern part of town, possibly within the current city limits and possibly just outside.
— The Bingham is now Cass Lake Lodge, according to Cass County Museum records. But the boundaries of Bingham’s property — inside of which the four holes of his golf course were placed — are unknown. Best guess is that they were east west or more likely south of his lakeside lodge.
Unfortunately, old aerial photos are of no help. The University of Minnesota’s 1937 database has a gap in Cass County — Murphy’s Law at play here — just at the western edge of Cass Lake and does not show the land between the city and the lake, where the golf course was. Also, available historical plat maps do not directly identify owners of lots in the vicinity.
— Another 1925 story identified the golf course land as being north of the Soo Line railway and east of Boatlanding road. Efforts to identify this road resulted in possible conflicts. I received much-appreciated input from Cass Lake residents and former residents on a Facebook page, mostly leading to the assertion that the current Sailstar Drive is the Boatlanding Road — but a 1927 map of resorts in the area (I can’t publish it because I don’t have rights to it) doesn’t show any roads leading diagonally from the city to the lake, as Sailstar does today. So I still can’t positively identify the path of Boatlanding Road from the 1920s.
— I have no idea where the aforementioned “Sam Fairbanks allotment” was. Nor did any of the handful of people I mentioned it to.
— I did find two newspaper clips that, put together, appear to closely identify the site of the golf course. First, the Cass Lake Times of July 1, 1926, reported on the organization of a golf club, with Walter Minton as its inaugural president.
“Dues were set at $15 and fifty members have already pledged themselves.
“The course consists of the Bingham four hole course, now ready and the Newsome property to be teed up for a nine hole course.
“The club will lease these to properties for the present and the links will be ready for use in a short while.”
But where was the “Newsome property”? I was stuck on that detail until recently discovering a classified ad in the Minneapolis Tribune of April 26, 1926, notifying that the Highland Inn Resort was up for sale and that the land was being held by the Newsome Development Company of Cass Lake.
Today, Highland Park Lodge is about 550 yards southeast of Cass Lake Lodge — formerly the Bingham. It leads me to say my best guess is that the original Cass Lake Golf Club land lay close to those lodges, about a quarter-mile west of the lake, possibly on or near what is now 162nd Street Northwest and 60th Avenue Northwest, or about four blocks north of the Leech Lake Land of Ojibwe Tribal Office. That could be in conflict with the noted proximity to Boatlanding Road, and I can’t resolve that.
UPDATE: COURSE FOUND, I’M PRETTY SURE
Update, July 19, 2019: I have come across a 1939 aerial photo of the area between the city of Cass Lake and the lake itself, which I presume includes the Bingham Lodge. The photo is likely from the season after golf was played at this site, but the features wouldn’t have changed appreciably. I can’t identify all areas with certainty, but I am pretty sure this photo reveals the Cass Lake Golf Club site.
Photo is courtesy of the University of Minnesota’s John Borchert Map Library. I tried to keep markings to a minimum, but here are some guidepoints: B = Bingham Lodge; CL = Cass Lake (the lake); BR = Boatlanding Road; CL-C = Cass Lake (the city). I marked a few points with a green G. If you’re able to take a close look (clicking on the photo might help), you might see very small white circles that look very much like sites of golf courses’ sand greens.
RUNNING ITS COURSE
Cass Lake Golf Club operated on this site into the 1930s. In 1933, memberships cost $15 and greens fees were 50 cents. The club had an organizational meeting in April 1938, the Cass Lake Times reported, and an inter-club match was played against Bemidji in May 1938.
In 1939, Cass Lake Golf Club went through a significant change. I’ll let you know about that in my next post. In 1945, Henry Bingham sold his lodge to fellow St. Paul resident Davidson Burns, who renamed it The Burns. Carl and Freda Bixenstine bought the resort in 1952 and operated it until 1969. It operates today under the name Cass Lake Lodge.
Henry George Bingham, who worked at the Curtis and St. Paul hotels after selling his lodge, died in 1948. Seems a safe bet that he never met Calvin Coolidge nor witnessed what surely was the considerable hitch in his golf swing.
Photo at top of post is of Bingham Lodge, via lakesnwoods.com. Caption reads, “The Bingham Resort, Cass Lake Minnesota, 1940’s.” Thanks to the Cass County Museum and the Facebook group Children of Cass Lake MN for contributions to this post.