December 6, 2013
The first picture is a 1927 view of property across the street from what would become Jackson Park Golf Course. Looking west, the circle shows the intersection of 15th Ave. N.E. and N. 137th St. The lower right corner shows the Olympic Riding and Driving Club, a polo field and ….just a guess but looking at the photo I think the “driving” part might mean the outer perimitter was a race track?… The “now” Old House on the N.E corner of the intersection would become the Caroline Tavern which is still open today.
Humorist Will Rogers played polo at the club in 1935 prior to his death in a plane crash in Alaska. A memorial to Rogers’ memory erected at the club has been moved to the Lake City Community Center.
Where’s all the tree’s?
I remember when the old polo field barn burned down. It was dark out and embers were dropping from the sky. I lived on 15th PL NE.
I lived not too far from the Polo grounds, in the late 50’s, it was a riding stables by then. The horses would ride through our neighborhood, and my mom would pay me to scoop poop for her flowers. There was an Ostrom’s mushroom factory not far from our house, they also got some of the horse dung. On a hot summer day the farm was quite odiferous. I had a summer job mucking stalls to earn riding time.
My grandfather, Charles Stuart Holdaway, had a small farm adjacent to the course back in the Forties and Fifties. He had two spaniels—Sandy and Dolly— that he trained to find lost golf balls. Grandpa and the dogs would go out at night to search for balls in the rough. Then he brought them home, washed them, then sold them from an upright cart to golfers at the clubhouse. There was an article about him back in the P.I. or the Times from that time. Jon Holdaway
My dad, Jerry Stuart Holdaway, got to be a pretty good golfer for living next to the course. He played for Lincoln High School along with the Puetz brothers and Dick Sachstetter who I guess was a pretty good golfer himself. Dod went on to become an assistant pro at Inglewood, then, (unfortunately), a lawyer.