What is now in 1937, "The Union City Country Club" started in 1910
at a point on the Ohio traction line where it crossed the Pennsylvania
R. R. - the home of the Parent Gun Club at that time.
At that time the Pennsylvania Railroad was double-tracking the
"Panhandle" division through Union City, and some Pittsburgh engineers
were on the job. Howard McKown was one of them. With him was a big 6
foot engineer by the name of Landon. Both were go-getters, and to them
we appealed for ideas, and they arranged to get a railroad section house
located a few rods from the tennis courts.
On a certain day all agreed to be on hand to help move this house.
A motley array of club members appeared, dressed in duck pants,
overalls, caps, straw hats, sweaters, etc. and the picnic was on.
With block-and-tackle, crowbars, rails, rope, chewing tobacco and
profanity, the house was lifted and started on its way.
After the building was in place, we built a veranda, and on the
Fourth of July of that year a picture was taken of the members of the
country club.
About this time a salesman from Crawford McGregor Co. at Dayton,
Ohio, called on Sam Eichelbarger, a local jeweler, and said they were
making golf clubs at their shoe-last factory. Sam had seen the game of
golf once and liked it. Well, we decided to play golf.
The fact that the grove was full of trees never occurred to us. We
layed out six holes on convenient level spots, rolled 'em, mowed 'em,
and went to it. The catalogue said that the wooden clubs were for long
shots, so we made two long holes for them.
And what a life! The tennis court was in the way, so was the club
house and the gun club building. The grass in the rough and around the
trees was twenty inches high. The railroad was too close for a left
handed player, and the stumps were too high. Howard McKown, after his
first shots was still behind the first tee, and they were all good
shots. It was the stumps. Reno Welbourn spent 45 minutes looking for
something in the tall grass before we found out it was his golf bag he
was looking for.
Then came the caddies. They were told to walk ahead and get behind
a tree. We didn't want to hurt any of our boys. One caddy was actually
hit on the finger, and this little member of his anatomy was the only
part of him visible from the tee. Another boy, not a caddy, had his
nose broken while standing close back of a player trying to figure out
what he was trying to do.
One day while wandering through the country, Sam Eichelbarger
discovered "Bickel's High Banks," a beautiful pasture land of about 40
acres. It looked more like the golf course he had seen. A committee
inspected the place, and it was rented. We made six holes, all on the
north side of the Greenville Creek, because of the absence of bridges.
That winter (1911) Ira Bickel, who lived on the farm, and who had
become interested in golf, volunteered to move our club house on skids,
using his steam tractor. Eichelbarger said it couldn't be done. He had
run a steam tractor himself, and it would barely pull its own weight.
But Ira had a western type tractor, made to pull a gang of plows and he
knew his tractor. The snow was thin, and the skids wore down to
paper-thin on the trip of 5 miles, but everything else went O. K.
That was the end of the "Parent Grove Country Club" and the
beginning of the "High Banks Country Club."
A new house, just a little bigger was built on the north bank of
the creek and the porch off of the other club house was put around it.
The railroad house was used for a tool house.
Later the ground was purchased for $200.00 an acre, and $21,000 was
spent for a club house. The name was changed to "The Union City Country
Club."
There are those alive who think that the old days of golf around
1912 were the happiest ones. There was a barbed wire fence around the
pasture and cows and calves and a bull. The seven acres at the
northwest corner where the club-house now stands was a cornfield. The
course was crisscross with nine greens of blue grass. There were two
sometimes three foot logs across the creek, and few women dared to cross
the swaying, wiggling path. Women did not play. Men played in their
old clothes, not their Sunday togs, because they had to be prepared to
mow grass, roll the greens, chase the bull, or "play the ball where she
lies, no matter where she lies."
Think of playing nine rounds of golf in one day. That's 81[18?]
hours. It can be done - from daylight to moonlight - and many of the
charter members had done it.
Now, in 1937, the course is more beautiful, and there's a big club
house to go to, in case it rains. There are now ample bridges, no cows,
a children's playground, a banquet hall and everything.
And there are a hundred live people in Union City who would join
and enjoy the club - if they only had time to go out and see it.
----The author of this article was not identified.