History

Brief History of the Butterfield Country Club

The personnel of the Members of the Club, its rank and file, as well as its officers, is of the highest type.

The year was 1918 and the guns of World War I were hardly silenced.  Naturally, golf courses at that time were far and few in between.  There were a few private clubs, but not enough to accommodate the vast and growing number of men who had a burning desire to play the game of golf.  It seemed too, especially around Chicago, that most of the clubs were located either on the North and South sides of the suburban areas.  The West side was most certainly ready for a fine golf club.  And so it was that a new star in the golf horizon was soon to be born.  The greatest early boost to golf came in 1913 when an unknown ex-caddie by the name of Francis Quimet won the Open Championship of America.  This caused quite a stir among the budding golfers of Chicago and chief among these was none other than Rev. John Code and a group of his friends.  It was largely due to his love of the game and his untiring efforts that the idea of Butterfield began to take seed.  Rev. Code together with a group of men that more or less comprised the “Who’s Who” of the business world in the West Side and Western suburbs of Chicago got things started.  As quoted from the Club promotional booklet of 1921, it is true today, as it was then, that:

"The personnel of the Members of the Club, its rank and file, as well as its officers, is of the highest type. It is composed of men the most representative in the business, the professional, and the everyday world of affairs. They are as broad in view as the wide spreading acres of their beloved Butterfield; as upright as the lordly pines that crown it, as humble as the lovely green carpet it; as winning as the Sylvan retreats that ravine it, and as open and as transparent as the limpid water that embossom it."