A club organized principally for social purposes. The club house, tennis court and golf links are located At west end of Marshall Avenue, overlooking the Mississippi river.
The original Town & Country Club grew out of the clubs and civic organizations that created the city’s annual Winter Carnival. In 1887 the club began meeting in a residence on Lake Como. Three years later the club moved to a beautiful piece of land near the Marshall Avenue Bridge on the Saint Paul side of the Mississippi River. The Town & Country Club was designed by state capitol architect, Cass Gilbert, and built in the early 1890s for $25,000.
Golf was still a novelty when the club decided to create a course. According to legend, an early club member brought, George McCree, a Scot who came to Minnesota by way of Canada, out to the Club with a lawn mower to lay out the course. Using an antique driver and a twenty-five cent gutta percha ball, McCree took a few shots and marked each hole with a stake. The first round of golf in Minnesota was played at the club in 1893. Golf did not catch on right away. When $50.00 was requested from the Club’s Treasurer to buy a set of golf holes and flags to replace the tomato cans and fishing poles, it was rejected because golf was a silly game and it would never catch on. A couple years later, a Chicago amateur by the name of E. J. Frost, was hired to lay. The club budgeted $2,000.00 and the new nine holes opened for play on June 1st 1898. The same year, Robert Foulis, the first golf pro and maker of clubs, was hired away from St. Andrew’s Golf Club and the club hired a greens keeper.
Town & Country Club’s golf course is the second oldest golf course in the United States still being played on its original land. Town & Country Club is one of the first member clubs of the United States Golf Association and is a founding member of the Western Golf Association.
