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VOL. XXVIII
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MAY 2, 1925
Entered ae second class matter at the post office at PINEHURST, N. 0. Subscription 92 00 ner vear
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Number 2o
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The Fame of Pinehurst
r"T^T a dinner by the Kiwanis club the other day Max
I I Gichner, of Baltimore, a man who has been coming in
U *1 to this section for forty years, told a story of the fame
of Pinehurst. He was in Calcutta, India, and there fell to
talking with a man of that region, and incidentally North
Carolina was mentioned. “Yes,” said the man, “North Caro
lina. That is at that Pinehurst, the great golf country.” And
I thought as Mr. Gichner was talking that there at Pinehurst
were in progress golf tournaments that were contested by
players from all over the world, polo games that drew play
ers from many states, college contests in which men from
many sections were measuring their skill With each other,
tennis tournaments, the dog show, and always the races and
other things to interest people. At the same time at the Caro
lina hotel a big convention was in session, bringing folks from
various sections, with more conventions scheduled for the fol
lowing weeks well along into May.
I have never segregated Pinehurst from the rest of the
Sandhills, for to me the entire community has always seemed
the unit. Each neighborhood in the community is of itself in
a way, and each is a part of the composite. But Pinehurst is
a definite factor in the development of the whole of Middle
North Carolina, and Pinehurst is more or less of a barometer
of the progress and the future of this part of the United States.
Therefore from time to time I like to check up on Pinehurst
and find out what the signs are. In a way there is a prophetic
disclosure when I am told that this year the patronage at Pine
hurst has been one of the record makers. To begin with the
season is lengthening each fall and spring, which is most sig
nificant. In October the visitors and residents begin to ar
rive from the North. The rear guard hangs on until well in
May. By that time amusement has given way to work, for the
orchard folks and the farmers and the road builders and the rest
of the people must turn to business, and the winter of recrea
tion has already been crowded by the necessity of production.
This long season at Pinehurst impresses me more force
fully than the tremendous speculative boom-in Florida. In
stead of going money wild on the possibility of buying land at
a high price to sell it to some one else at a still higher price,
people are attracted to the Sandhills country by the substan
tial discovery that longer and longer the year may be made
enjoyable in this agreeable climate, and that if they care to
stay the year through summer is just as agreeable in North
Carolina as anywhere else under the sun and the whole year
sizes up with a whole year in the most delectable spot on the
globe.
This lengthening season in Pinehurst is one of the features
of the Sandhills. That is one thing that helps to swell the
numbers that visit this section, for it is not possible "that the
big army should stay seven or eight months on their winter
vacation. But it is possible for the crowds to come at any
time they find the weather conditions in the North undesirable,
and as one delegation comes one goes. So the gaiety is kept
up from October until May and in the Sandhills the business
of caring for visitors becomes more nearly a permanent busi
ness than a transient affair covering only a few weeks. Thi3
becomes necessary through the interest that has been created
by the multiplying tournaments. Golf has long ago taken
the Sandhills. Pinehurst, famed as far away as India, has be
come the Olympia of the present day. Here are staged dur
ing the winter the great contests that bring players from all
quarters of the globe. Here are the big events in golf, here
are the championships won, here the army of players gather
in thousands. The schedule makes dates for long periods ahead,
and on the regular recurring anniversaries the leaders will be
on hand to take part, and the followers will come in droves.
The Pinehurst Olympiads are wholly given to 'modern
games. Golf, polo, trap shooting, tennis, the races alone going
back to the Grecian period. And the people gather as of old,
and they will gather in increasing numbers, for the world has
grown to realize that here is the culmination of athletic con
tests, and the enthusiasm reaches a higher pitch with each
succeeding American Olympiad. That is why Pinehurst finds
a longer season necessary, and why a larger crowd is wel
comed with each returning contest. Pinehurst is an enjoy
able spot to put in a few weeks or months, Pinehurst games
are growing in interest, more people want this clean and
wholesome sort of amusement, they have more money to per
mit a winter or fa*! or spring vacation, and ti*;y come.. That
is the one decisive evidence of the coming days of the Sand
hills. That Pinehurst each year draws a greater attendance
is the certain indication that the future is to see the same in
creases in the number of visitors, for that instinct that turns
to athletic games and to holidays is just as live and vigorous
now as in the days of more than twenty-five hundred years
ago when the Greeks brought their national sports to the place
of the most splendid national festival.
And the conventions come to this modern valley of the Pel
opennesus, with its delightful climate, the roads to compare
with the famed “Pompic Way,” the forests the equal of the
sacred groves of the Altis, and the gently swelling hills as
alluring as those that swept away toward the Ionian sea.
They come because the surroundings that appeal to the golf
players and the winter visitors who come to the modern
games appeal also to every one who likes Nature at her best.
(Continued on page 7)