Ridge Historical Society
The First Country Club on the Ridge: The Ellerslie Cross Country Club – Part 6 – Equestrian Events and Conclusion
By Carol Flynn
The Ellerslie Cross Country Club was the first country club to open on the Blue Island Ridge. It was located at the southwest corner of 91st Street and Western Avenue.
The Ellerslie Club was founded by a group of Irish American Catholic businessmen. The Irish did not yet live in Beverly in appreciable numbers, but the club was indicative of the social and business success that the Irish immigrants were achieving in the United States.
The Ellerslie Club was an early “country club” that introduced golf to its members, but they were also passionate about other sports, including coursing with greyhounds and equestrian sports.
The golf and coursing events at the Ellerslie Club were covered in previous posts. This post will look at the equestrian sports.
Of course, everyone back then was familiar with horses to an extent. Horses and carriages were still the primary means of private transportation in the 1890s, although the automobile industry was in its infancy and within a decade wealthy people would be driving Fords.
The English and the Irish, however, brought a great love for horses and horse sports with them to the U.S. Racing, polo, steeple chasing, fox hunting (“riding to the hounds”), and jumping competitions were all popular by the late 1800s.
Racetracks were already established around the city and suburbs, and clubs like Ellerslie offered other sports. Indeed, the “Cross Country” part of the Ellerslie name came from the pursuit of prey, whether an animal or some other target, like a church steeple, riding over fields, jumping fences and ditches, and splashing through streams.
The undeveloped southwest suburbs of Cook County offered a great terrain to indulge in these sports. One newspaper described them as open fields and prairies with few fences and just enough natural obstacles, like streams and wooded areas, to be interesting but not too dangerous.
To acknowledge local history, this was not the first time that “riding to the hounds” was an activity on the Ridge. Thomas Morgan brought greyhounds with him from England and led riding parties on the Ridge in the 1840s to hunt down and kill the local wolves that were here when the white settlers first arrived.
By the time of the Ellerslie Club, the wolves were long gone, and fox hunting was frowned upon because of the brutal killing of the fox. Protests by humane societies led to “fox hunts” with a person on horseback acting as the fox, leading a “paper chase” where scraps of paper were dropped to show the path the “fox” was taking. When dogs were involved, an alternative was to have the “fox” drag a bag filled with anise that the dogs were trained to sniff out and follow.
The Ellerslie members were known for their fine horses and riding skills; they were considered “crack riders,” the best of the best. One newspaper said they were as comfortable in saddles as in chairs.
Joseph Crennan, the first Ellerslie president, was the veteran rider of the Club, having participated in hunts at the famous Curragh of Kildare in Ireland. His favorite mount was a hunter named “The Doctor.” He also owned a famous gray horse named “Bowling Green.”
Patrick Lawler, considered the best all-around horseman in the Ellerslie Club, occasionally performed “amazing circus feats when the members needed talent at their county fairs.” His favorite horse was named “Cossack.” Lawlor was one of the first directors and a member of the first Sports and Pastimes Committee.
Thomas Keeley, the first treasurer of the Club, was said to have one of the finest stables in the country. His horses won competitions all over the country. One of his prize winners was named “Up-to-Date.”
Women participated in these events also, and they were excellent riders who surpassed many of the male riders. One of the women riders was Kate Keeley, sister to Thomas Keeley, who like her brother was known for keeping very fine horses, including a champion jumper named “Jupiter.” She also owned a famous gaited saddlehorse named “Indian Boy.”
The Ellerslie Club brought Patrick Lawler and Kate Keeley together; they married in 1903. They certainly shared common interests.
In 1899, a competition across fields in the north suburbs was won by Joseph Crennan, riding The Doctor.
The success of that event led the Ellerslie Club to stage its own cross-country hunt, with Crennan on The Doctor as the fox. From the Ellerslie stables, riders and dogs galloped southwest through the fields to the Midlothian Country Club which had been founded in 1898, then returned to Ellerslie. Other clubs in the area were invited to participate.
The Ellerslie Club held a similar hunt on Christmas Day in 1900, with nineteen riders and dogs racing across the fields to the stock farm owned by Henry Saxon, fifteen miles southwest of Beverly, where the riders enjoyed lunch before heading back to Ellerslie.
In 1901, the Ellerslie Club purchased its own pack of beagles, which were kept at the Longwood Kennels in Washington Heights, owned by Robert J. Hoodless. There they were trained to follow the scent of anise.
In 1902, the Club members took a four-day horseback trip with stops in Wheaton, Elgin, Lake Geneva, and Waukesha, where a dance was given in their honor.
The Ellerslie members also formed a “crack” polo team, according to the Chicago newspapers.
Polo was waning in Chicago, but the Ellerslie Club brought it back. After the initial lease of sixty acres of land, the Club leased thirty more acres to expand the golf course and add a polo field. Two hundred sheep were pastured there to keep the grass low.
The Club also bought twenty-five “broncho” polo ponies from the Indian Territories and Arizona that were the Club’s property, not individual owners, which were kept in the stables on the Club’s grounds.
A steeplechase course was set up around the perimeter of the polo field. Trap shooting was also added to the grounds.
Alas, the Ellerslie Cross Country Club came to an end in 1906-7.
On Saturday, July 7, 1906, the clubhouse was destroyed by fire. Members who were sleeping there that night all escaped safely.
It was reported that the club would seek a longer-term lease, and build a new clubhouse, but that did not happen. Ellerslie ceased operations around 1907.
By then, there were other country clubs on the Ridge.
The Ridge Country Club was organized in 1902 in Morgan Park, and in 1904, rented 60 acres of land in Beverly from 103rd Street to 106th Street, Seeley Avenue to Western Avenue. They built a clubhouse at 10302-04 S. Leavitt Street. They lost that lease in 1916, and moved to the present location at 103rd Street and California Avenue.
The Beverly Country Club started in 1907 at 87th Street and Western Avenue on land that had been the apple orchard on the John B. Sherman stock farm. Sherman was the founder of the Union Stockyards and some of his farm became Dan Ryan Woods.
Many of the Ellerslie Club members joined the South Shore Country Club at . They were not involved in the formation of the other country clubs on the Ridge.
By 1911, the Ahern family took over the land on which the Ellerslie Club had been located. They opened the Beverly Gardens restaurant there, with a small golf course, likely making use of the remains of the Ellerslie Club. They expanded and incorporated as the public Evergreen Golf Club in the 1920s.
Golf pro Anna May “Babe” Ahern and her brothers ran the club after their parents died. Babe Ahern was born in 1907, became a golf pro in the 1920s, and lived to the age of 103. At her death, the Village of Evergreen Park acquired the property and, amid much controversy, turned it into a strip mall.