A Little Golf Lesson

Early 1900s golfing suit attire

by Janet Chester Bly

Golf originated from a game played on the coast of Scotland during the fifteenth century.

 A pebble was hit, instead of a ball, around sand dunes using a stick or club. After 1750, golf evolved into the sport of today. In 1774, Edinburgh golfers wrote the first standardized rules for the game.

History of Golf Balls

Golfers soon tired of hitting pebbles and tried other objects, such as thin leather bags stuffed with feathers. The gutta-percha ball, invented in 1848 by Reverend Adam Paterson, was made from the sap of the Gutta tree. This ball could be hit a maximum distance of 225 yards.

In 1898, Coburn Haskell introduced the first one-piece rubber cored ball. These balls could reach a distance of 430 yards. According to The Dimpled Golf Ball by Vincent Mallette, in the early days of the game, balls were smooth. Players noticed that as balls became old and scarred, they traveled farther. Players began to intentionally pit them.

“The beat-up balls reacted differently to the forces they encountered while flying through the air,” Mark Maughmer, professor or aerospace engineering at Penn State, explains.

In 1905, William Taylor added the dimple pattern, starting the modern day trend. In historical novel, Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot, Brannon uses the new-fangled dimpled variety in his first attempt at tournament play.

Early 1900s baffing spoon golf club

History of Golf Clubs

In the early 1900s, the baffing spoon was a popular golf club. Golf clubs have evolved from wooden shaft clubs to sets of woods and irons. They are more durable and have better weight distribution. They can also better withstand harder whacks.

History of Caddies

Golf bags first appeared in the 1880s. "The beast of burden" is an old nickname for the caddies who carried them for the players. The first powered golf cart appeared around 1962, invented by Merlin L. Halvorson.

1921 golfer using sand tee box
for making sand tees

History of Golf Tees

Tools for raising a ball higher for a more effective shot began appearing in the late 1800s. The earliest tees were clumps of dirt. In 1889, the first documented portable golf tee was patented by Scottish golfers William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas. Made from rubber, they had three vertical rubber prongs that held the ball in place, just propped on the fairway. 

In 1892, Percy Ellis patented a rubber tee that pegged the ground with a metal spike. A later tee included a cup-shaped top to better hold the golf ball.

However, sand tees were the norm when the commercial varieties weren't available. A little wet sand shaped in a conical mound, though messy, worked well to get the ball flying air bound.

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Stuart Brannon's Final Shot
Hardback Edition

In Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot, by Stephen Bly and co-authored with Janet Chester Bly and his three sons, Lady Harriet Reed-Fletcher sponsors a Gearhart, Oregon celebrity golf tournament in 1905 to benefit the Willamette Orphan Farm. She talks ex-lawman Brannon into participating, along with other famous persons such as Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody, and a young W.C. Fields. He grapples with learning the game while intent on finding his missing U.S. Marshal friend.

Stuart Brannon's Final Shot
Kindle & Paperback

Bly Books link to Stuart Brannon's Final Shot:
http://www.blybooks.com/product_category/historical-western-novels/
or Amazon:
http://amzn.to/1itToqn

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Janet Chester Bly is the widow of award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Together they published 120 fiction and nonfiction books, including The Stuart Brannon Series, including a number of historical romance novels. Janet is working on her first solo novel since losing her writing partner, to be released later this year. Janet lives in the mountains of north-central Idaho, 45 miles from her three married sons and their families.

Janet Chester Bly taking swing
near Salt Lake using
portable tee mat

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A Big Fair by Janet Chester Bly

Lewis & Clark Centennial Overview

Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition 1905 by Janet Chester Bly

Check end of article to participate in book giveaway ...

The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition* happened June 1 to October 15, 1905 in Portland, Oregon. 

The theme suggested by the Oregon Historical Society  centered on the 100-year celebration of the explorers' Meriwether Lewis and William Clark 1805 crossing the U.S. to the Pacific Ocean. But finances originally spurred the project.

Oregon suffered from the nationwide Long Depression of the 1890's. The state's business leaders tried to devise ideas for boosting their economy. An international fair was suggested and a Board of Directors established with Henry W. Goode as president. Other board members included Portland's wealthiest and most powerful men.

Lewis & Clark Centennial Lake View

After funding received by personal investments, government backing,and citizens who purchased stock certificates, they searched for a site. They finally chose the Guild's Lake area at the edge of Portland. Guild's Lake provided groves of trees, acres of pasture, and 220 acres of shallow water at the center. Also the marshland sprawled with dogwoods, maples, blackberry vines, and flowering currants.

John Olmstead, the landscape architect, prepared the layout to imitate the "White City" of Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

The vast majority of the structures overlooked Guild's Lake. A wide staircase led down to the lake and a myriad of amusements. Beyond that scene rose four snow-clad mountain peaks: Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, and Mount Hood. To the west was the Cascade Range through which Lewis and Clark made their trip to the Pacific Coast.

The majority of the buildings resembled Spanish Renaissance style, decorated with flourishes such as ivory

Lewis & Clark Centennial Federal Bldg

white domes, cupolas, arched doorways and red-colored or moss green roofs. The massive Federal Building "looked like a cross between a railroad depot and a Mexican cathedral." (Oregon Historical Society).

Other architecture formed the massive colonnade entrance.

Lewis & Clark Centennial Colonnade Entrance

Exhibits and Parks 

Exhibits included agriculture, technology, and music themes and featured The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and various other concerts, the Smithsonian Institute, and artist displays such as Claude Monet. An amusement park included a Ferris wheel. The sidewalks teemed with sideshows. There were novelties such as free motion pictures and blimp excursions. Every night fireworks displays lit up the skies.

Sacajawea in WA Park

Numerous marble statues dotted the grounds and experimental gardens. Alice Cooper's Sacajawea sculpture is now erected in Washington Park. Over 100 thousand light bulbs outlined the buildings, bridges, and statues for a spectacular nighttime view.

Adjacent to Vaughn Street Park, usually a baseball stadium, the Lewis and Clark Centennial sponsored the National Track and Field Championships. The site also became finish line for nation's first Transcontinental Automobile Race.

Plywood was introduced at the Fair which featured many of the latest innovations of the day. The elaborate, but temporary buildings largely constructed of plaster over wooden frames were eventually dismantled and torn down. Not even Guilds Lake remains today. Over the years it was filled with dirt and covered with industrial buildings.

The major exception to this was the Swiss Chalet-styled Forestry Building dubbed the "World's Largest Log

Lewis & Clark Centennial Forestry Bldg

Cabin." Constructed of 54 long unhewn logs, three stories high, with rustic tree-lined interior, it was 200 x 200' wide x 200' long and 72' tall. The building remained until destroyed by fire in 1964. The World Forestry Center, a replacement museum, was erected in Portland's Washington Park.

Other buildings still in existence from the fair include the Fairmount Hotel, the American Inn (the only on-site hotel and now converted into condos), and the NCR Building (St. Johns Theater and Pub).

Some controversies surrounding the Lewis and Clark Centennial:

* Many of the speakers advocated support of women’s right to vote.
* A Philippines display showed tribal native people preparing and eating dog meat.
• A Chinese exclusion order was discussed.
• In Portland, the Cooks and Waiters Union asked union members to boycott restaurants employing Chinese cooks.

Lewis & Clark Centennial Oriental Palace

Vice-President's Speech

On opening day, Vice President Charles Fairbanks announced a theme for Oregon’s new century.
“The future has much in store for you. Yonder is Hawai’i, acquired for strategic purposes and demanded in the interest of expanding commerce. Lying in the waters of the Orient are the Philippines which fell to us by the inexorable logic of a humane and righteous war. We must not underrate the commercial opportunities which invite us to the ‘Orient.’”
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* The official name was Lewis and Clark Centennial American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair. The "Oriental Fair" reference added mostly to take advantage of tax shelter providing for trade with the Far East.

For more info about the Lewis and Clark Centennial 1905, check out: The Great Extravaganza: Portland and the Lewis and Clark Exposition (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1981)
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Stuart Brannon's Final Shot

The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition played an important part in Stuart Brannon's Final Shot, my husband Stephen Bly's last novel that I and my three sons finished for him. Selah Award Finalist. Read that story here: http://www.blybooks.com/2012/03/coping-with-loss/

To find Stuart Brannon's Final Shot click here: http://www.blybooks.com/product_category/historical-western-novels/

GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY ... A choice of paperback or hardback/large print copy of Stuart Brannon's Final Shot given to two random winners. Offer open 24 hours from time of article posting. Sign up here:

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A Most Important Journey

Oregon Map

Oregon Coast 1905

Janet Chester Bly 

When my three sons and I determined to finish the novel Stuart Brannon's Final Shot my late husband Stephen Bly began, we had quite a challenge. Could a committee create fiction? We had the passion and four months to find out.

That included research, crafting the rest of the story, and turning in the manuscript of 77,000 words.

So we divvied out the 1905 research. 

The Places

I toured the Oregon coast, from Seaside to Astoria to study the sights, smells and sounds and historical details. The law enforcement. The layout of the town sites. The Salt Works Lewis & Clark memorial. How to catch razor clams and the greens and fairways of the Gearhart golf course.

I also learned all I could about gray whales, snakes and wild horses. Even discovered the rare presence of a cougar around 1905 through old newspaper accounts.

Lewis & Clark

I ventured to Fort Clatsop where explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark wintered in 1805 and scanned their journals. Found transcripts in a museum of an interview with a family member who had lived on that site. I investigated the Portland Lewis and Clark Centennial celebration of this event in 1905.

Each of the sons probed at least one other topic. Choices included Europe and assassinations. England's weddings and royalty. Goldfield, Nevada with its mining and labor unions. Panama and the canal project, with connections to France, Nicaragua and Colombia.

The controversy and intrigues of the Panama Canal project formed a large part of the plot.

“I’m going to make the dirt fly,” President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed.

And he did.

It's alleged he supported a revolution that pressured support of that project when Congress balked. Then there was the war to win against malaria and yellow fever, as well as gold to be mined.

We learned once more that on-location research is vital to save making fatal research mistakes.

Two weeks before deadline, we learned we had to make a substitute for the island we'd chosen for a major scene. Any old island would do for us. But we discovered none existed off the Oregon coast. No islands anywhere, only rock outcroppings. After some time of panic, we considered the Tillamook Head promontory near Seaside, a late addition to our landscape scheme. I hiked it, studied the history, asked questions of local historians, and made the change.

The People

We settled on the Clatsop tribe for the Indian characters.

We gathered biographies on famous golfers and historical persons, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody and W.C. Fields.

We needed to know about orphan farms and Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.

We also had to study horse behavior, to determine the hero's interaction with his out-of-control black stallion.

Gearhart pioneer Narcissa Kinney died before our story begins, but her presence permeates the city. For one thing, she made it a dry town, which it remained more than seventy years after her death.

Narcissa also brought culture in the form of a 200-acre Gearhart Park that included an auditorium for traveling circuit speakers and fiery orators, Broadway hits and bands such as John Philip Sousa's. Inspired by the Chautauqua movement, more than four hundred cities across the country sponsored these same events. President Theodore Roosevelt called them, “the most American thing in America.”

Narcissa’s husband, Marshall Kinney, instigated the links golf course on the north side of Gearhart. My husband loved playing on the grass-covered dunes so much he determined to set a story there. Gearhart Golf Links opened circa 1892 and ranks the second oldest course in the west.

Products and Inventions

Early 1900s auto horn

We found ads about cigars and cigarettes, clothing styles and golf equipment in old newspapers. We had to learn western genre basics like types of guns and knives, about flashlights and lawnmowers, telephones and walking sticks. 

In our study of trains, we uncovered railroad land controversies. We searched out transportation, such as motor cars and boats, bicycles and fire trucks. We wondered if 1905 autos had horns. Found out a few did.

The main scene begins on a train. The railroad opened up more tourists for the seacoast village of Gearhart, Oregon, tucked between crashing surf and Pacific forests.        

Culture and Events

We delved into Victorian era artwork and books, plays and music, crimes and diseases and also the politics of 1905. We studied the Spanish-American War, especially the U.S.S. Maine explosion in the Havana, Cuba harbor.

         

Creating a historical story begins with facts, the truth in fiction.

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Janet Chester Bly has authored 31 nonfiction and fiction books, 19 she co-authored with

Janet with sons: Aaron, Michael, Russell

Christy Award winning western author Stephen Bly. Titles include The Hidden West Series, The Carson City Chronicles, Hope Lives Here, and The Heart of a Runaway. Stuart Brannon's Final Shot was a Selah Award Finalist. She resides at 4200 ft. elev. on the Idaho Nez Perce Indian Reservation. Her 3 married sons, Russell, Michael and Aaron, live down the mountain in Lewiston with their families.

Website: www.BlyBooks.com

Blog: www.BlyBooks.blogspot.com

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 Stuart Brannon's Final Shot by Stephen Bly with Janet Chester Bly, Russell Bly, Michael Bly, 

Stuart Brannon's Final Shot

and Aaron Bly

Book blurb: 

Two orphans flee Tillamook Head. One of them is branded a hero. Dare they tell the truth and risk the wrath of a dangerous man? 

Meanwhile, ex-lawman Stuart Brannon searches for a missing U.S. Marshal at the request of Teddy Roosevelt. Who can deny the president of the U.S.? 

And his old friend Lady Harriet Reed-Fletcher convinces him to grapple to learn the game of golf on behalf of a celebrity charity tournament.

Available here: http://www.blybooks.com/product_category/historical-western-novels/