HISTORY

The Village of Lemont was settled in 1836, and about 90 years later three brothers by the name of Coghill bought a farm from John McLaughlin on the west side of Parker Road. Like a snowball rolling downhill, this farm began the complex that today is Cog Hill Golf Club.

Three electricians build a golf course.

The story begins with three brothers, John W., Martin J., and Bert Coghill who lived on a farm in Monticello, Indiana, and were hired by Western Union to string wire from their hometown to Chicago in the early part of this century. By the time they got to Chicago, they considered themselves electricians, joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Local 134) and began the Coliseum Electrical Company at 5422 South Halsted Street, in 1920. They expanded and moved across the street to 5441. Most of their work was residential, rewiring homes that formerly were only gas.

In the early twenties, they went to a golf outing sponsored by the electrical union at Oak Hills Country Club in Palos Heights. None of them had played golf, but they thought the game looked like fun, was easy, and they had a good time. They decided "we're plungers" and began looking for a site to build a golf course. Their search brought them 28 miles Southwest of Chicago to Lemont.

The Village of Lemont is located on a bluff that overlooks the Des Plaines River Valley. The hills and valleys of Lemont were carved out by the Wisconsin glacier during the last ice age. The change in elevation between the floor of the valley and the hills of Cog Hill are a striking contrast to the plains of Illinois. This land reminded the Coghills of land around their birthplace. They found the McLaughlin farm East of town and bought it with money they borrowed from Orland State Bank. Next, they hired David McIntosh, who owned Oak Hills, to build them a golf course.

Building and maintaining a golf course today is a scientific operation. In 1926-27, a golf course was built by manual labor and horse-drawn equipment. Men filled a scoop with two handles to move dirt and the horse would pull the scoop to an elevation they created and the men then molded and sculpted the dirt into a green. Mowers were pulled by horses. The back-breaking work produced the original Cog Hill #1. It opened on the 4th of July weekend in 1927.

To complement the course, the Coghills constructed a large, beautiful clubhouse. The building housed a great dining room with a 24-foot ceiling, massive wood beams, and an impressive stone fireplace. The adjoining lounge or sitting room also had a large fireplace and was complete with a grand piano. A small bar-ticket counter straddled the entrance foyer and connected the dining room and lounge area. In the European tradition, the clubhouse had 14 guest rooms for "weekend vacations or more extended periods." A women's locker room was located on the main floor just inside the clubhouse and the men's was downstairs and contained a small bar.

Outside the clubhouse, the owners touted another unique feature - the children's playground. It was billed as having the "last word in juvenile amusement devices." A maid was in attendance to insure the care and comfort of the children while their parents enjoyed a game of golf - child care 1930's style.

Cog Hill also had a Chicago link in those days. Reservations for golf were taken at the Boston Store, which, at that time, was one of the city's leading department stores. Another key to their success was the Chicago & Joliet Electric streetcar system that ran between Argo and Joliet, giving their customers easy access to the course. In those days a round trip ticket between Lemont and Joliet cost only 25 cents.

The course was busy from the very beginning, and soon they bought 160 acres on the east side of Parker Road from the Reed Family. David McIntosh and Bert Coghill worked together to design and build the original #2 course, which opened in the fall of 1929-just in time for the Black Thursday (October 24, 1929) crash of the stock market and the Great Depression. Despite the twelve years the depression persisted, the golf course prospered and the people who had money continued to make their way to Cog Hill.

A caddie becomes an owner.