Golf in the Gilded Age:
Robber Barons, Railroads, and Resort Hotels
5: Railroads and Resort Hotels
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American golf had its birth in the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s),
and by the close of the 19th century the United States had more golf
courses than Britain. This start is inextricably intertwined with the
dominant Tycoons of the day, and this in turn entangles the foundation
of golf in America with the expansion of their railroads and their associated
Grand Hotels in exclusive resort locations.
From 1900 to the advent of WWII, golf in America added
sinew and muscle on this underlying frame to make the Resort golf experience
truly spectacular and widely accessible outside the echelons of elite
society. The enduring legacy has been that the popularization of golf
in America is indelibly stamped with the watermark of excellence set
by these fabulous early Resorts.
RAILROADS & RESORTS
 K.
Union Pacific Railroad - Midwest and Rockies
1869
1869
L.
Southern Pacific Railroad - Monterey and San Diego
California Southern RR line to San Diego, 1885 map.
1898
Opened 1880 by Charles Crocker and the Pacific Improvement
Co. (land development wing of the Southern Pacific Railroad), with the
Golf Course opening in 1897.
Hotel Del Monte (1880, rebuilt after fire 1888
1880s: Pacific Improvement Company, headed by the "Big
Four" of railroad fame: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington,
and Mark Hopkins open Hotel Del Monte near Monterey. Eleven years earlier,
these ambitious gentlemen led the completion of the Trans-Continental
Railway with the driving of the "Golden Spike". Tourists now arrive
on the Monterey Peninsula via Southern Pacific's "Del Monte Express".
The first hotel of 1880 burned in 1887 and was rebulit and reopened
in 1888.
Pebble
Beach Resort History
The Del Monte Ltd. train ran from San Francisco to the
Del Monte Hotel and the end of the line at Pacific Grove beginning in
1890.
("Taken at Fingal, Cal., where the world-renowned 'Sunset
Limited' trains pass each other. One runs on a side track, and the other
dashes by at a high rate of speed. Switch is then turned, and the train
passes on, slowly receding from view.")
Southern Pacific Hotel Del Coronado, 1888, San Diego
Hotel Del Coronado -- Seaside and Golf Resort
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