Games People Play With a Photo of the Field House, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 12 April 1922

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

The massive gift of just over 3,000 acres of land, formerly part of the Rancho Los Feliz and much of it the rugged eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, to the City of Los Angeles by Griffith J. Griffith overnight established one of the largest city parks in the United States. The native of Wales made a fortune by consulting on mines and acquired the land in the early 1880s when land was cheap compared to what prices became during the major boom that came later in the decade.

The 1896 donation did not yield the immediate creation of what we know as the highly diverse environs of the modern Griffith Park, especially as the donor’s grand plans for the project were stalled by his stunning shooting in 1903 of his wife, Christina Mesmer, at the luxurious seaside Hotel Arcadia in Santa Monica. Mrs. Griffith, though wounded in an eye in which she lost sight, managed to leap from their suite onto an awning and saved her life and her crazed husband, a public teetotaler and closet drunk, spent two years at San Quentin state prison for the crime.

Griffith Park, however, evolved into a valuable public space, with the founder’s son, Van, serving on the city’s Parks Commission and the estate providing funds for such important amenities as the Greek Theatre and the Griffith Observatory. Hiking and equestrian trails, gardens, a zoo and a golf course were among the other key components of the park developed over time and a prior post here featured some 1925 snapshot photos of the remarkable Fern Dell section at the southwestern corner of the park.

This post highlights, from the Museum’s collection, a real photo postcard of the Field House, or the golf course clubhouse, situated at the northeast portion near the Zoo and the Autry Museum of the American West. While the date of the image is not known, the card bears an inscription from 12 April 1922 with four signatures attesting to:

A good ride,

A good lunch,

With good company,

A good driver,

In a good car,

Goodness known

We shouldn’t forget it

For a good long time.

As to golfing at the park, historian Mike Eberts has noted that an early course was merely composed of dirt and sand, reflective really of the nascent interest and development of the sport in the region, but a movement to create a proper grass course was realized with what became the city’s first municipal course.

The Los Angeles Times of 13 May 1913 reported that Griffith met with a parks commissioner and superintendent, as well as sporting goods store owner Bernal H. Dyas and others, “regarding the proposed public golf links” and it was added that the group “estimated that it will take $5000 to properly lay out” the course.

As paltry as that amount sounds, it was asserted that “when completed, however, they would be unsurpassed in Southern California,” though this is also testament to how far golf courses would soon become with better and more intricate designs and the funds to pay for these. The article concluded that:

The whole matter of laying out the links and the probable cost was laid out before Col. Griffith, who not only presented the park to the city, but has at all times taken a great interest in its improvement, and who is invariably consulted before any large improvements are started.

What was prosaically named “Municipal Course Number One” was opened in October 1914, with the Times of the 23rd noting that “despite the fact that the City Council turned down the request of the Park Commission for an appropriation of $3000 to complete the golf links in Griffith Park, the links are completed and in use.”

This was accomplished because the commission saved on other park work to get the course, designed by Tom Bendelow, completed and it was added that a formal opening would take place in a few weeks “when the finishing touches are completed.” Lastly, it was reported that “the course is said by members of the Park Commission to be one of the finest in Southern California.”

The new course proved to be an immediate success, as the Times of 22 December 1914 observed as it recorded,

The municipal golf course at Griffith Park is creating a mild riot. Men who never hoped to play before are buying clubs and books on “How to Play Golf.” The sale of golf clubs has almost doubled since the course opened.

So great has become the demand that clubs can be rented and balls bought at Griffith Park. The ice cream stand out there has put in a full line of clubs, and starts this Saturday to rent outfits at 35 cents an hour.

Dyas, who no doubt benefited handsomely from the burgeoning interest in the sport, opened his store basement for the recently established New York Golf School and it was expected the endeavor would be successful, “judging from the number of beginners” at the Griffith Park links with the prior Sunday being one in which “at least half of those on the course were playing for the first time.”

The Times of 10 February featured a lengthy piece by Burl Armstrong about the need for more playgrounds for Angel City residents, though he spent most of his piece talking about golf, observing that the course at the park “is trod daily by men and women who are hungry for the feel of the turf . . . and for the elixir of the game.” With about 1,000 rounds played weekly, Armstrong felt that “in a year the popularity” of the links would be such that “the course will be inadequate,” so that another facility would be necessary and waiting too long, as land prices rose, would be a mistake.

The writer continued by asserting that “golf is not a rich man’s sport—not when the people own their playground” and he insisted that “it is the only universal sport in this climate because it involves no violent [vigorous] exercise,” but invigorating enough. Armstrong believed that modern life was such that “the youthful lines have bulged at the front and the flesh is softened” by being indoors far too much. Moreover, the sport “affords an outlet to [golfers’] pent-up energies” and allowed for the necessary “proper coordination between mind and muscle.”

In fact, the response to the opening was such that a reader, known only as “A Bug,” wrote to the Times for its edition of the 16th that “I see no mention of any sort of clubhouse proposed for future erection.” It was suggested that a club be established at the facility “to build a small shelter with lockers” that would be appreciated by “a good many persons who are taking advantage of the links at this time.” The correspondence, however, closed with “it would be much better to have a municipal clubhouse,” but it was felt that the Park Commission likely had enough on its hands and was not “in a position at this time to go farther than getting the course in good shape.”

“A Bug” was apparently hardly alone in his sentiment because, within a few months, a groundswell of support arose for a proper clubhouse at the new course. The Los Angeles Express of 26 March 1915 briefly noted that “the city council is asked to provide a $10,000 or $20,000 clubhouse . . . in a petition that is now being signed freely by patrons of the links” with the view that it “can be made self-supporting.”

A little over a week later, the Times of 4 April observed that the City Council recommended to the Park Commission “that their consideration be given the proposed and long-desired pavilion” with a commission member telling the paper that plans would soon be drawn up to include dressing rooms, lockers and showers for men and women as well as a restaurant. It was added, though, that this would be done once the council gave assurances that “the cost of drawing up the plans will not go for naught.”

In mid-May, the course hosted its first tournament, with Alma Whitaker of the Times writing in its issue of the 15th that “the long-promised tournament was to be “a full-blown” one with qualifying rounds, match play and “prizes for every flight and defeated eight.” The existing Los Angeles Golf Club moniker, deemed to be too confusing because of the Westside’s Los Angeles Country Club, was refitted to the Griffith Park Golf Club, established an eighteen-hole qualifying round, following by match play, including on the Decoration (Memorial) Day holiday on the 31st.

Whitaker continued that “patrons have been simply tumbling over each other with offers of cups and trophies” and the Club, which had about 100 members, “is about to blossom forth with a team” and challenged the San Gabriel Country Club (of which Walter P. Temple, once he realized his small fortune in oil, later was a member) to a match, this being accepted and a date to be soon fixed. Obviously, a patron, Whitaker concluded that “the course is getting rather fast now and a little judicious cutting of the grass approaching the greens will insure some good scores.”

As another year passed, the Times of 5 March 1916 reported that, although there was a request of $12,000 “for a real clubhouse,” the City Council appropriated $4,500 for a locker, rest and shower room due to a funding shortfall requiring “an extensive cut in the park department.” It was hoped that rental fees for the lockers would make the modest structure self-supporting while future appropriations would be sought.

The Express of the 15th featured an editorial about the “Municipal Clubhouse” that, while it was satisfied with the plan for the limited facility, the fact that the “indulgence in wholesome outdoor recreation has been eagerly availed of by thousands of our people” showed that other courses were needed and the costs of a clubhouse were considered nominal. Fees paid by patrons would make a clubhouse self-sustaining and the piece ended by commenting,

It is not often the city has an opportunity to make so excellent an investment or one that will pay such large dividends in public comfort and convenience.

The paper followed up in its edition of 14 October and averred that “considerations of economy must, under existing conditions, reign supreme” but that “provision of means of public recreation are as essential a municipal function as sweeping or sprinkling the streets.” It added that “whatever can be done to encourage our people to outdoor exercise makes for healthier and happier men and women and better citizenship,” this sentiment being apropos of the increasing role of government in the Progressive thinking of the period.

The Express continued that “it is to be regretted that the [park] commission was unable to complete the Griffith park clubhouse within the limit of the sum allotted by the [city] council” as this would be a hindrance to future requests for funds. It was reiterated that the links “are utilized to the utmost” and it was claimed that a doubling of patronage would not meet demand, but any outlay of public funds would be “insignificant” compared to the benefit provided to citizens enjoying the game.

The editorial concluded with the observation that,

The rich, and even the moderately well-to-do, have access to private golf links or to the links maintained by the various country clubs, whereas but for this fortunate stroke of municipal enterprise a great body of citizens might lack the means of enjoying a most healthful recreation.

Nearly another year elapsed until the Times of 27 August 1917 commented that “there is considerable irritation out at Griffith Park over the delay in the matter of the clubhouse” as “they have been building it for two years now, and it is still in a hopelessly unfinished state.” The paper decried the lost revenue of up to $7,000 annually from rentals and other income and inquired “what is it that makes this irritating delay necessary?”

Further, intoned the Times, thousands of golfers “suffer many and peculiar inconveniences owing to the lack of this clubhouse, which they are all so ready to support to its profit.” The conclusion was that “it seems about time that an official investigation is made on the subject” because the paper claimed to be the recipient of weekly complaints on the matter.

Whether this lit a fire under the right people in city administration or not, work was finally brought to completion as 1918 dawned, though there wasn’t much made of this in the press, with the Express of 10 January merely noting that, with one of the biggest tournaments held to date under the supervision of superintendent “Dad” Aborn, a key figure in the establishment of the course, “the Griffith park clubhouse now is open and many golfers are taking advantage of it.”

It took another several months, though, for an official “house warming” to take place, along with a major tournament to take place on the 1st of June. The Times of 27 May announced that the program at Noon was to include music from the band of the Los Angeles Fire Department, a welcome from Mayor Frederic T. Woodman, an address by a park commissioner, and a pageant offered under the auspices of the University Auxiliary of the Los Angeles Red Cross as part of First World War support efforts.

The tournament turned out to be the first official city championship for men and women, with players required to purchase a Red Cross badge for at least $1 in lieu of an entry fee, as the organization “will be upon the scene to offer the golfers every facility and encouragement for disgorging their merry dollars.” The clubhouse opening was “a gala occasion de-luxe” as part of the tourney.

The clubhouse remained standing for not quite two decades, while the dramatic growth of the Angel City and the sport of golf in the early Twenties led to the redesign of the course, which was renamed for the late President Warren Harding when it was dedicated on 11 August 1923, just days after the chief executive died in San Francisco while on a national tour and before he was to come to Los Angeles. Four years later, a second course was opened and named in memory of Harding’s predecessor Woodrow Wilson—to this day both retain those titles.

The field house was replaced in 1937 by a Spanish Colonial Revival facility built with funds from the Works Progress Administration, an important Depression-era New Deal organization that provided a great many important projects throughout greater Los Angeles and nationally. The older building was left standing behind the new structure for a short time before it was razed and, in 2022, a renovation at the clubhouse was completed for the latest generation of golfers who’ve been enjoying the sport at the park for 110 years.