No one knows why Pfost killed himself, but that shot sent an echo down the years bringing controversy to every golf course project Boulder City has undertaken.
In the late 1940s the Black Canyon Country Club leased 206 acres of land south of what is now Adams Boulevard promising to build a legitimate golf course. But every deal the club pursued failed. Just after Boulder City incorporated in 1960, the country club bought its landand for the next ten years tried unsuccessfully to interest both the city and private developers to work with them. These failed efforts divided the membership and the community, until the club sold its acreage to a homebuilder in 1971. When Boulder City opened a municipal course in 1973, voters repeatedly torpedoed plans to expand it, to build homes, and to erect what was considered an extravagant $150,000 club houseall of which eventually happened anyway.
Golf course projects in later years have proven even more contentious. When the city council approved a lease with MGM for a private golf course in 1998, the controversy tore the city apart. The erstwhile Red Ridge project approved in the same year is still lost in space, and the Boulder Creek controversy led to a recall election in 2004. People give lots of reasons why golf courses cause so much trouble in Boulder Citywater and growth issues, suspicious council decisions, wasting taxpayers’ money. But it’s none of that. What really plagues our golf courses is the Curse of Merle PfostBoulder City’s original Bogey Man.
Sponsored by the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum
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