Here are a couple of fun facts, borrowed from a city website, about Wells, a city of 2,300 in south-central Minnesota:
“In 1897, the Council requested all saloon keepers remove tables and chairs from bar rooms and prohibit all card playing in saloons. They also requested closing the saloons on Sundays. That same year, according to City Ordinance, ‘all dogs must be muzzled from July 1 thru Sept 1 or it becomes Marshall Stearns duty to shoot them.’ ”
I suppose those facts don’t quite qualify as “fun.” Especially the one about dogs, woof. Nor do they have anything to do with golf. But there you have it, late 19th-century life in Wells.
All right, there had to be more to life in Wells than mugs and mutts. But enough frivolity. About golf in Wells:
The city’s current course is Wells Municipal Golf Club, a nine-hole, executive-style layout with four par fours and five par threes. “It has been a proud member of the Wells community since 1934,” the city’s website says. The course is accompanied by nearby recreational facilities — a baseball and softball field, and city swimming pool — at Thompson Park. A racetrack once was a prominent feature of the park. No word on whether the galloping hosses were muzzled.
Before 1934, however, there was at least one, and probably two, golf courses in Wells or nearby. Both are now lost courses, Nos. 247 and 248 on my list/database of documented Minnesota lost golf courses (you can Google “lost golf course map” to find the full complement).
I don’t know the full history of golf in Wells, but a fair amount of research, especially via the Wells Mirror newspaper archives on Newspapers.com, reveals what may be a reasonable sketch of its history …
… which starts in 1921.
“Nineteen golf fans and hope-to-be golf fans met on Fridey (sic) and organized the Wells Golf Club,” the Mirror reported on June 23, 1921. The club capped its membership at 60. C.B. Holly (more often identified as Holley on the Internet) was elected club president, and Dr. F.E. Best vice president.
No site for the golf course was selected, though “the grounds committee has several places in view. … Local enthusiasts have been playing the game on a small course laid out in the southwestern part of town.”
The Forum-Advocate of Wells reported on July 14, 1921, that the club had moved its grounds from the “Behrens farm to the Dr. P.F. Holm place which is occupied by Harry Weaver and located a mile and a half east of town.” The Behrens farm site, the Mirror reported a day earlier, “was found not suitable.”
This is where it gets confusing for me. I checked Faribault County and Wells-area plat maps from 1920 and 1925, and see plots owned by both Behrens and Holm, but they are not in places that coincide with what’s reported as golf course sites. I’ll go ahead and blame my poor map-reading skills for not precisely identifying the lost courses. If someone is able to clarify, I’m all Internet ears.
On July 27, 1921, the Mirror reported that Wells Golf Club had increased its membership from 60 to 75. “The links will be further improved to the extent of the money in the treasury. The grass will be mowed and if possible the greens put in better condition.”
Also, “The game has proven so popular that early in the evening the 7-hole course is already at times very much crowded, so eventually it seems that it will be necessary to have a 9-hole course.”
But then newspaper references to the club faded for a few years. The Mirror of March 12, 1931, confirmed that the course had closed. Three months earlier, it was reported an indoor miniature golf course had been opened on Broadway in Wells, an 18-hole course formerly occupied by the Motor Inn Company. The walls were painted “attractively with a desert scene, cactus and sage brush predominating in plant life.” The greens were covered in “goat grass.”
Golf — the real thing — returned to Wells in 1934, judging by the city’s website, or perhaps in 1935, judging by Wells Mirror stories. The April 25, 1935, edition of the Mirror reported on a new golf course at Wells Park, a six-holer laid out east of the grandstand by Jack Gallett, Albert Lea pro. The story expressed hope the course could be expanded to nine holes and a clubhouse could be built. Work was being done by the the State Emergency Relief Administrations (SERA) program, established in 1933 to mitigate poor economic and work conditions caused by the Great Depression.
“The addition of the course,” the Mirror reported, “gives Wells one of the finest parks in Southern Minnesota.”
A 1935 story suggested the course had been expanded to nine holes. Play continued through 1954, according to research, but then appeared to cease again until 1960. The club was reactivated again, and a May 1962 story in the Evening Tribune of Albert Lea detailed expansion plans, including installation of grass greens and building of a new clubhouse.
I believe that is essentially also the current state of what now is Wells Municipal Golf Club and its 2,044-yard design.
Photo with this post shows the site of Wells Golf Club in 1938. Photo is taken from the database of the University of Minnesota’s John Borchert Map Library.