July 20, 1919: Riverside Golf Course opens in Duluth

On this day in Duluth in 1919, the Riverside Golf Course officially opened. The community of Riverside had recently been built by McDougall-Duluth Shipbuilders to house workers at its shipyards, and it isn’t clear whether the course was constructed by McDougall-Duluth or a private group. Nine holes were laid out northeast of 85th Avenue West and south of Grand Avenue. Three months before the course opened the club already had 75 members, including officers John Wright, L. G. Bradley, and William Campbell. Clyde Heimbach of Heimbach Lumber was also involved, suggesting that the course was not directly affiliated with the shipyards. The grounds, the newspaper reported, would also include tennis courts as the organization promised to spend $25,000 to make “this club one of the leading clubs in the state”—further suggesting it was unrelated to the shipyard. Three years after it opened the Duluth News Tribune reported that the club’s members were not restricted to residents of West Duluth but was made up of “men from all parts of Duluth.” The course operated throughout the shipyard’s dormant years, but like the shipyards themselves, didn’t last beyond World War II. While we could not find an exact date for its closing, the course was last listed in Duluth directories in 1945. Read about other “lost” golf courses of Duluth and Superior here, Enger Park Golf Course here,  Lester Park Golf Course here, and Northland Country Club here.

The location and layout of the Riverside Golf Club is shown here in this detail from the 1935 Welbanks map of Duluth. (Map: Duluth Public Library).iverside