Cobb's Creek Collaborators - Restoration Dreams

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mike,

The answer, as always in Philladelphia, is politics. The new Administration is doing away with the Fairmount Park Commission and the golf courses will be part of the City's Recreation Department. There is a ballot question in November on this issue. Nothing will be done until after the election.

[Mike_Cirba]

The short answer is to sit tight because there are also some issues to be resolved before the lomg-term management agreement is finalized.

I'm not at liberty to say much except that there is absolutely no reason at all for anyone to get discouraged...if anything, some of the political changes may work to centralize decisionmaking and even possibly increase funding after a long time working on shoestring budgets.

I'm looking to reconvene our group in early November after election day.

[Mike_Cirba]

And Mike, if folks have additional questions please tell them they can contact us anytime at friendsofcobbscreek@gmail.com

Thanks

[DMoriarty]

Apparently the dissing of Hugh Wilson started pretty early.   

Was McCracken related to MacWood and Moriarty?   

Just kidding folks!!!   We have enough other contemporaneous articles to prove the design involvement of Hugh Wilson and all of the others, but it also seems that Ab Smith was most involved of all of these men in public golf, particularly in the building of the course (as opposed to designing it) as well as his involvement in pushing for additional courses in the 20's (and then designing them as well).

MacCracken did not dis Wilson.   Robert Lesley did.  No relation. 

1.  Robert Lesley wrote that Wilson & Committee laid Merion out on the ground with the advice of M&W . . . Mike Cirba concludes that Wilson designed the course, and M&W did not.

2.  Robert Lesley wrote that Smith laid out Cobb's and doesnt even mention Wilson?  Mike Cirba concludes that Wilson designed Cobb's with Smith.

 Lesley is either he is using "laid out" to mean something other than designed, or he is entirely crediting Smith with the design of Cobb's.  Which is it? 

What is wrong with this picture?
 

[Joe Bausch]

Apparently the dissing of Hugh Wilson started pretty early.   

Was McCracken related to MacWood and Moriarty?   

Just kidding folks!!!   We have enough other contemporaneous articles to prove the design involvement of Hugh Wilson and all of the others, but it also seems that Ab Smith was most involved of all of these men in public golf, particularly in the building of the course (as opposed to designing it) as well as his involvement in pushing for additional courses in the 20's (and then designing them as well).

MacCracken did not dis Wilson.   Robert Lesley did.  No relation. 

1.  Robert Lesley wrote that Wilson & Committee laid Merion out on the ground with the advice of M&W . . . Mike Cirba concludes that Wilson designed the course, and M&W did not.

2.  Robert Lesley wrote that Smith laid out Cobb's and doesnt even mention Wilson?  Mike Cirba concludes that Wilson designed Cobb's with Smith.

 Lesley is either he is using "laid out" to mean something other than designed, or he is entirely crediting Smith with the design of Cobb's.  Which is it? 

What is wrong with this picture?
 

PLEASE, if you feel compelled to respond David's post, start another thread.  This Cobb's Creek thread has been pretty pure since its inception.  I really do not want it to be taken way off course.

[DMoriarty]

Joe.   

Am I not allowed to post my thoughts on a Cobb's thread? To correct Mike's mistaken attribution?   Aren't you interested in who designed and built Cobb's Creek?

I'll gladly leave Merion out of this thread.

Why do you think Robert Lesley credited only Smith??

What do you think that Lesley meant when he wrote that Smith laid out Cobb's? 

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Please see my thoughts on the Macdonald thread.

Robert Lesley was correct that Ab Smith laid out Cobb's Creek and designed it as well.

It's just that he did it with Hugh Wilson, George Crump, George Klauder, Francis Meehan, and they late in the game received an assist from Walter Travis.

If you'd like to see proof of that, I'll be happy to send you the book we wrote that includes all of the contemporaneous accounts.

Thanks

[Joe Bausch]

Joe.   

Am I not allowed to post my thoughts on a Cobb's thread? To correct Mike's mistaken attribution?   Aren't you interested in who designed and built Cobb's Creek?

I'll gladly leave Merion out of this thread.

Why do you think Robert Lesley credited only Smith??

What do you think that Lesley meant when he wrote that Smith laid out Cobb's? 

PLEASE, if you feel compelled to respond David's post, start another thread.  This Cobb's Creek thread has been pretty pure since its inception.  I really do not want it to be taken way off course.

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike, Wayne, and all:  I'm a man of my words.

I found that article Mike and so many others wanted to confirm.  Here it is!

Paper: Philadelphia Inquirer, published as The Philadelphia Inquirer;  Date: 01-24-1915;  Volume: 172;  Issue: 24;  Page: 14;  Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Here is relevant part of the article, which I'll send to anybody that wishes the entire thing as a PDF file.

"...Such experts as Hugh Wilson, who laid out Merion and Seaview courses, George Klauder, one of the constructors of the Aronimink course, and Ab Smith, who has done a lot for the Huntingdon Valley course, have laid out the course in Cobb's Creek Park".

Please let's not have this debate.    David, we have more attributions of Hugh Wilson than you can possibly dispute and you're way, way out of your realm here.

Thanks.

[DMoriarty]

I'd love to see the book, can you email it?   

What debate?   I don't doubt that Wilson was involved in designing the Cobb's. 

Why do you think that Lesley only mentioned Smith?

What do you think that Lesley meant when he wrote that Smith "laid out" Cobb's? 

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

I'll email you a copy this weekend.   I think you'll enjoy it as it has some really great material Joe Bausch and others uncovered. 

I mostly simply put some narrative around it.   

Once you get a chance to go through it, I'd be happy to discuss it with you in detail.

Thanks!

[DMoriarty]

Thanks.

What do you think that Lesley meant when he wrote that Smith "laid out" Cobb's? 

Why do you think that Lesley only mentioned Smith?

A few months ago, were not either you or Joe compiling examples of how the phrases "laid out" and "laying out" and "lay out" and similar phrases were used in the the context of creating golf courses?   If I remember correctly one of you was going to come up with a number of examples so we could see figure out what these phrases meant.   

What did you guys find out?   

[Joe Bausch]

Just another interesting article from the early days of Cobb's Creek (from the April 8, 1923 edition of the Philadelphia Public Ledger):

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

Can you also post the January, 1923 article about the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) pushing for new public courses in the city?   

They certainly had a very big interest in growing the game during those early years.

[Joe Bausch]

Joe,

Can you also post the January, 1923 article about the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) pushing for new public courses in the city?   

They certainly had a very big interest in growing the game during those early years.

Here it is!  It's no big deal... 

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe Bausch is quite the amazing researcher.

He took advantage of the frigid weather in Philly today to visit the Free Library where he came across this incredible photo of the 5th green under construction along the edge of Cobb's Creek in May, 1915.

Check out the horses, the vehicle (can't tell if it's a car or a roller), and the surveying equipment. 

The more and more I see of construction and architecture from this time, the more I believe most of it was done on the ground in the dirt and not on any type of formal, detailed plans.

[Mike_Cirba]

That same photo spread from May 1915 included the shells of two buildings that today stand as the clubhouse and the maintenance barn, which were originally the men's and ladies' locker rooms.

The former was the remains of a gutted dwelling that had been through a fire, and the latter was a barn.   Famed architect Walter Smedley took those basic shapes and created two very grand, very functional dwellings.

[Joe Bausch]

Here is a version of the making of the 5th green that lurkers will be able to view, from the May 30, 1915 edition of the Philadelphia Record:



A November 14, 1915 issue of The Record did a cover page of the clubhouses, before and after:

[TEPaul]

"The more and more I see of construction and architecture from this time, the more I believe most of it was done on the ground in the dirt and not on any type of formal, detailed plans."


That's probably the case at that time. One of the general items that was discussed in the setting up of the USGA's new Architecture Archive was when the first plans and drawings were used in golf architecture. Naturally they evolved from basic stick routing to drawings that were more comprehensive and developed but I don't know that anyone has tried to track that evolution. Some think Colt may've been one of the first to do fairly detailed golf architrectural drawings. I suppose if a project had an engineer on-board some plans and drawings may've been generated but I don't know when the engineers were first used in the creation of golf courses and golf designs.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

I'm also guessing that if the original spring 1911 Merion "plans" are ever found they would almost certainly be stick routings on a topo, just like the "plan" that Wilson, Smith, Crump, et.al. developed for the Fairmount Park Commission to build at Cobb's Creek.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
I'm also guessing that if the original spring 1911 Merion "plans" are ever found they would almost certainly be stick routings on a topo."

Mike:

Somehow I doubt that. Don't forget MCC and the Wilson Committee had a member on it who was a professional engineer---eg Richard Francis. And don't forget some of the details of his story of the late night visit to see Horatio Gates Lloyd and how it began with----"After spending many hours over a drawing board and running instruments in the field....."

That sounds to me like Richard Francis was generating some fairly comprehensive plans and drawing for the Wilson Committee in the winter and early spring of 1911. He obviously had figured out how to move that unbuilt road (Golf Club Road) on the Nov. 1910 plan from College Avenue all the way to Ardmore Avenue to fit in #1 green, #14 and #15 with little to no net loss or gain to the course and the proposed residential development to the west. The so-called "triangle" on the top of the plan already existed (even though it had no bottom boundary base) and all Francis did was expand it enough to fit #15 green and #16 tee up into where they are now. The Board minutes actually reflect this net wash land swap that resulted from the movement (from College to Ardmore Aves) of the road on the plan and other documents reflect that Lloyd had put himself into position at the end of December 1910 to deal with just this kind of boundary adjustment situation. The mind and future planning of a heretofore previously unknown MCC participant, T. DeWitt Cuyler, MCC's lawyer, fits seamlessly into this entire scenario. The fact is MCC did not receive the deed to Merion East's land from HDC (the real estate developer) in late 1910 and early 1911; Horatio Gates Lloyd and his wife did! Lloyd deeded the land over to the MCC Golf Association (a corporation Cuyler's created to lease the land to MCC) about 7-8 months later after the golf course was well into construction and the boundaries were finally set.

The board minutes also mention that the Merion East course plan that was approved in April 1911 was ATTACHED to the Committee report submitted to the MCC Board! The Wilson Committee's design plan was presented to the Board by MCC Golf Committee chairman, Robert Lesley, a man most all of us are familiar with for a number of reasons. So obviously it existed.

It sounds to me like the Merion East plan might have been a fairly comprehensive drawing and likely done by Wilson Committee member, Richard Francis, a professional engineer.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

You may be right there but I'm also wondering if a good deal of the pouring over the drawing board and running instruments in the field may have also been related to creating an accurate working topo?

I guess my question is how much of the land surrounding Philly was already topo'd by govt. surveyors prior to 1910 or so, or did these guys have to do it themselves and then plot holes on it?

I say this because I've yet to see a single course layout drawing from anything Joe Bausch or any of us have come across of any of these early courses that is more than a stick drawing.   Even the one we saw published for Merion West was very simple stick and ball.

In fact, in thinking about it, the first real course "drawing" that included details of hole features and other "internals" that I can think of is the one that I think Flynn did of Merion East for the 1916 US Amateur, which is obviously an "as built" based on the course at that time, and not a "planning" document.

In any case, I believe it's still out there somewhere.   I hope we get the chance to see it some day.

I'm also sort of hoping that more detailed hole drawings might exist of Cobb's...that were perhaps given to the city workmen once the basic routing was roughed out and more detailed shaping was taking place.    Joe and I were thinking perhaps another winter trip to some of the local city archives might yield some interesting things in this regard.   

Or, perhaps they just sat around with flasks pointing at the crews and did it on the fly?

I suspect we will learn more in time.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
You may be right there but I'm also wondering if a good deal of the pouring over the drawing board and running instruments in the field may have also been related to creating an accurate working topo?"


A topographical contour map of the land of Merion East existed at least in Jan. 1911. I know that because of Wilson's first letter of Feb. 1, 1911 to Piper of the US Dept. of Agriculture in which Wilson mentioned that he enclosed a copy of that topographical contour map.

[Mike_Cirba]

Interesting...

Given that much of the internal plans for the artificial features (bunkers, mounds and such) of the holes seem to have come after Wilson's 1912 trip abroad, those drawings would be rather revealing about the course evolution I'd bet.

More to the topic here, that sort of gives me greater hope that there may be more detailed drawings of Cobb's that were beyond the basic stick routing that was presented to the city and approved by the Fairmount Park Commission in April 1915.

[TEPaul]

"I say this because I've yet to see a single course layout drawing from anything Joe Bausch or any of us have come across of any of these early courses that is more than a stick drawing."


The so-called "Blue/Red" line topo map of Pine Valley has the outlines and features of holes drawn over a topographical contour map. The surveyor's date on that map is March, 1913. It's the same map (albeit another copy) that Crump used before Colt arrived to do a stick routing of the property. I believe the contours are in 5 feet elevations. They are quite faint at this point but you can read them. The point is they represent the property's topographical contours BEFORE any earth was moved on the property for a golf course, and if anyone really wanted to know what was built and what wasn't the way to go about determing that is pretty obvious.