The Lebanon City Council has decided on a name for the golf course purchased by the city last September.
At its Monday night meeting, the council approved the recommendation of the Golf Course Advisory Board to name the course Spring Hollow Golf.
On Sept. 22 of last year, the Lebanon City Council voted 6–2 to approve the purchase of the golf course property located at 16744 Missouri Highway 64, previously known as the Lebanon Area Community Golf Course, formerly Lebanon – GreatLife Golf & Fitness.
Following the acquisition, the City Council appointed a Golf Course Advisory Board to oversee operations of the course and report back to the City Council. As part of its charge, the Advisory Board was asked to consider and recommend an official name for the golf course.
The city’s Human Resource Director, Kathy Milliken, said the name Spring Hollow Golf draws directly upon a documented place name from Laclede County’s early history. According to History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas, Pulaski, Phelps and Dent Counties, Missouri by the Missouri Secretary of State’s Missouri Digital Heritage collection. “Spring Hollow” was the name of a small, narrow valley in western Laclede County, so named because the surrounding district contained numerous natural springs. Spring Hollow Creek, which rises within the hollow and flows west into the Niangua River, also carries the name, she said.
In 1874, the Laclede County Court detached the western portion of Lebanon Township and organized it as a new municipal township, comprising all of Township 34 North, Range 17 West. The new township was named Spring Hollow Township; taking its name, according to the 1889 county history, from “the hollow, the outstanding identification point in the region." A post office also operating under the name “Spring Hollow,” located roughly eight miles southwest of Lebanon, served the area from 1873 to 1883.
She told the council that over the following decades the Spring Hollow Township grew into an established rural community with its own local institutions, including the Bolles School, Cannon School, and Ivey School, and congregations such as Mount Zion Church and Union Church; each documented in Missouri place-name and county history records as located within Spring Hollow Township. The township.name has persisted into the present day: county property and land records still identify tracts in this part of Laclede County as lying within “Spring Hollow Township.”
“The golf course lies within this same west-central area of Laclede County, situated approximately two miles west of the City of Lebanon along State Highway 64; the same general vicinity historically encompassed by Spring Hollow Township and the valley for which it was named. The recommended name Spring Hollow Golf revives this local historical place name, connecting the city’s newest recreational asset to a landmark and township identity documented in Laclede County’s earliest written history and carried forward in county records for over 150 years,” she said.
In other business, City Administrator Troy Schulte said a presentation is planned for the next Council work session Aug. 24 on an operations approach now handled by the YMCA.
"We'll kind of walk through that kind of where we see how this would operate under a city governance structure," he said.
The council approved an agreement with Lebanon Arbor Care LLC for feeder clearing services for theElectric Department.
The council approved the rezoning of several lots located at 601 Lynn Street from RS-2 Residential to RU-2 Rural District, Cemetery.
The council approved a parade permit for the Freedom of the Road Riders annual to run on Nov. 1 The event helps raise funds and supplies for those who need help for Christmas. The council accepted the results of the Aug. 4 election, in which the city's 1/2 cent sales tax for transportation was approved by voters.
For more stories, see Wednesday's LCR. (Aug. 11 Update -- changing formatting "For more stories..."
