The adjoining lounge or sitting room also had a large fireplace and was complete with a grand piano. The building housed a great dining room with a 24-foot ceiling, massive wood beams, and an impressive stone fireplace. To complement the course, the Coghills constructed a large, beautiful clubhouse. It opened on the 4th of July weekend in 1927. The back-breaking work produced the original Cog Hill #1. 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. In 1926-27, a golf course was built by manual labor and horse-drawn equipment. Next, they hired David McIntosh, who owned Oak Hills, to build them a golf course.īuilding and maintaining a golf course today is a scientific operation. They found the McLaughlin farm East of town and bought it with money they borrowed from Orland State Bank. This land reminded the Coghills of land around their birthplace. 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. The hills and valleys of Lemont were carved out by the Wisconsin glacier during the last ice age. The Village of Lemont is located on a bluff that overlooks the Des Plaines River Valley. Their search brought them 28 miles Southwest of Chicago to Lemont. They decided “we’re plungers” and began looking for a site to build a golf course. None of them had played golf, but they thought the game looked like fun, was easy, and they had a good time. In the early twenties, they went to a golf outing sponsored by the electrical union at Oak Hills Country Club in Palos Heights. Most of their work was residential, rewiring homes that formerly were only gas. They expanded and moved across the street to 5441. ![]() 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. 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.
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