Lake Effect News

By JACK BESS

Contributing Editor

Imagine a time when miniature golf was a hot issue in the news.

It was 1930, and the proliferation of miniature golf courses around the country constituted a genuine trend that had to be addressed by municipal governments (for land-use and public-disturbance issues), scrutinized for deeper meaning by social critics, and capitalized on by entrepreneurs in the midst of the Great Depression.

Bob-O-Link (Howard News, Nov. 13, 1930)

The North Side of Chicago caught its share of miniature golf fever. Always the bustling entertainment district, Uptown boasted the Lilliput course at Argyle Street and the lakefront with (perhaps its most impressive feature to us today) no less than 1,000 free parking spaces.

One thing to note is that miniature golf (also called baby golf, pee-wee golf, ’arf-pint golf and other names) was very often played indoors. Uptown’s 18-hole Dinky Indoor Golf Course was reportedly the largest miniature golf course in Chicago.

The Bob-O-Link Indoor Golf Course that opened November 15, 1930 at 1607 W. Howard St., had over 13,000 square feet for playing. Advertorial copy that ran in The Howard News on November, 13, 1930 said that the Rogers Park course offered “natural greens and flowers, hanging baskets, miniature water falls, brooks with running water, tiny lakes with lilies and water plants, rustic bridges, and a rustic porchway with vines.”

Only a few blocks away from Bob-O-Link was an 18-hole miniature golf course that was part of the national Tom Thumb chain. It opened on April 26, 1930 at Howard and Malvern (later renamed Hermitage).

Tom Thumb also had a course opposite the Edgewater Beach Apartments, 5555 N. Sheridan Road. This Edgewater business and a separate course at Irving Park and Drake landed in city court in August 1930 in connection with residents’ complaints of loud noise and disorderly conduct. The Edgewater Beach manager told one judge that tenants were being kept awake by noise coming from Tom Thumb nearly all night long, according to a Chicago Daily Tribune story on August 8, 1930.

By the end of August, a municipal judge fixed the closing times for miniature golf courses at 12:30 a.m. weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends.

Tom Thumb Golf Course (Howard News, April 24, 1930)

In the Loop, hotels rushed to take advantage of the craze. When the Congress Hotel announced in September 1930 that it would open an indoor course fronting on Michigan Avenue, similar plans were revealed in November by the LaSalle Hotel, at LaSalle and Madison, and by the Morrison Hotel, at Madison and Clark. Madison planned its course for restaurant space on the first floor, while the Morrison began constructing an 18-hole course for the balcony of its Terrace Gardens.

Baby golf was taking giant steps in 1930, popping up on steamer ships and inside or next to West Coast movie theatres operated by the Fox studio. In Chicago, aldermen moved to ban the opening of miniature golf courses in residential districts. What prompted the move was a decision by the Zoning Board of Appeals, which overruled Building Commissioner Christian Paschen’s denial of building permits for three pee-wee courses, including one at 6301 N. Sheridan Road. (Paschen is the man for whom Paschen Park, 1932 W. Lunt Ave., is named.)

Like all new trends, miniature golf was studied by experts, one of whom determined that It Could Be Good For You and another one who decided that it revealed Something Disturbing About Us All.

On October 3, 1930, the Tribune reported that a U.S. veterans’ hospital in Long Island was constructing both a Tom Thumb course and a larger course to help ease the emotional and mental suffering of Great War veterans.

Dinky Indoor Golf Course (Uptown News, Sept. 19, 1930)

But the dark side of dinky golf was pondered in a luncheon speech given by the director of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation in Champaign and reported in the Dec. 10, 1930 Tribune. The speaker linked miniature golf to other activities – crossword puzzles, tree sitting, endurance flying over air fields, football – that indicated a fundamental foolishness running rampant in America.

“We have recently been inflicted with miniature golf,” the speaker was quoted. “Surely there is something wrong where an entire nation does the same thing at the same time.”

Thankfully, the nation returned to doing different things at different times and we survived miniature golf. However, miniature golf itself, at least on the North Side of Chicago, hasn’t survived very well, outside of Navy Pier; the Diversey Driving Range, 141 W. Diversey, and a few other Park District facilities; and Novelty Golf and Games, 3650 W. Devon Ave., though it’s on the Lincolnwood side of Devon.

But fond memories of miniature golf courses endure. For some of us, these courses were fun and stress-free places for first dates during high school, long before we ever dreamed we’d get stuck in the sand trap of adulthood.