Western Chester County Life|
Over the 100-year life of the Coatesville Country Club, it has welcomed generations of golfers, families and community members on the strength of a simple but poignant saying:
‘Come for the golf. Stay for the people.’ By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
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ince it first opened as a five-hole course in 1921, Coatesville Country Club has grown to be a timeless classic, tucked within the bucolic outskirts of an industrial city. Spread across more than 6,000 yards, the 18-hole course’s tree-lined fairways and immaculate greens offer some of the best views of Chester County. For every family and individual who has ever been a member Coatesville Country Club, there is an equal number of ways it has been defined. Like its wedding reception venues both indoors and out, it is elegant and refined. Like its popular tavern, it is casual and unpretentious. Like its 25-meter pool, it is comforting and cooling. Like its many events held throughout the year – from concerts to clam bakes and from movie nights to Independence Day fireworks celebrations, when the entire Coatesville community is invited – it is the feeling of being welcomed into someone’s backyard, because for generations of members and the Coatesville community, that’s exactly what Coatesville Country Club has come to represent. While the celebration of the 100th anniversary of 48
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Coatesville Country Club in 2021 has been highlighted by a family pig roast on June 12, a centennial ball on Aug. 6 and golf events for members and non-members on Aug. 7, to name just a few events, it has also been a year of reflection on its rich history. New book chronicles Club’s history Much of that history is catalogued in the new book “Coatesville Country Club: Our First 100 years,” published this year and written by Club member Dr. William J. Castro, whose family joined the Club in 1987 when Castro was just six years old. Throughout the book’s 172 pages, Castro followed what he called “the breadcrumbs” of the Club’s history, spending hours reviewing old newspaper articles, maps and government documents “to attempt to fashion a narrative history of the Club that is worthy of the remarkable people who are its custodians,” he wrote in the book’s introduction. With each story told and from the hundreds of archival photographs included in it, Castro’s book is a breathtaking sweep of the Club from its humble beginnings, when in September of 1920, a group of Coatesville businessmen – many of them employed by the Lukens Steel Mill
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