home
Clubhouse History
Welcome the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club!
Arsenal Island has had a very colorful history. The Island was a summer resort for several Indian tribes as well as the birthplace of the famed Indian Black Hawk. Fort Armstrong, which was erected on the Island after the War of 1812, served as a fur trading center and a land office for settlers. The Rock Island Arsenal was officially established in 1862 (during the Civil War). A prisoner of war camp was located on the Island, incarcerating approximately 13,000 Confederate soldiers.
In 1897, Colonel Stanhope E. Blunt, Commanding Officer of the Arsenal, convinced the government that some of the grounds on the Island were not needed by the War Department. He had a five-hole golf course laid out on what is currently the 1st, 2nd and a portion of the 18th hole. The Colonel invited a group of his friends to the Island to partake in this new and interesting game called golf. Although the game was popular in the East, it was very little known or understood in this part of the country and by a good many people here looked upon as a frivolous invention of the evil one to lead men's minds away from their business and kill time that should be spent in more profitable pursuits. It was explained that this game consisted of driving, or otherwise propelling, with instruments ill-contrived for the purpose, a hard white little rubber ball across the pasture land and into a hole formed by sinking something that looked like a tomato can into the ground. An article in The Moline Daily Dispatch in July of 1897 states "There is a prospect that a taste for this type of open-air sport may become, in some degree, popular among the people in this part of the country."
This meeting was the nucleus of our club. Within a few years the course was extended to eighteen holes. The names that Colonel Blunt used for each hole are utilized to this day. In the formative years of our Club, the Commanding Officer automatically served as President and his staff officers as the Club's officers. The course maintenance and upkeep were done by soldiers. Dues were a nominal $5.00. After a fire of unknown origin destroyed the small locker house on October 11, 1905, Secretary of War William Howard Taft granted the club a license to continue the use of the links and to erect a new clubhouse. The clubhouse, built in 1906, has had many alterations and additions over the years and continues to serve the membership of the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club today with areas for formal and casual dining as well as banquet facilities.