TABOR - The Tabor Hometown Pride Committee began meeting in 2014 with a simple philosophy: improve first impressions of the community straddling the Mills and Fremont County line.
So naturally, the committee built a miniature golf course.
The Farm Yard Putt Putt Golf Course opened this summer in a pocket park owned by the city just off Main Street and south of the Casey’s Convenience Store. The nine-hole course is free and open to the public from sunup to sundown every day.
The idea for the miniature links had been rolling around in Susan Shepherd’s head for a few months. As the president of the Tabor Hometown Pride Committee, an off-shoot of the Keep Iowa Beautiful Initiative, Shepherd wanted an outdoor activity that would attract families of all ages.
“We wanted to come up with something that was accessible to our youth, was free and would fit in the park area,” she said. “We got a lot of the ideas for it off Pinterest. It looked like a good, free family activity, especially with the social distancing.”
Fremont County was the second county in the state to be named as a Hometown Pride county and tasked with attracting tourism and economic growth while showcasing the community.
“All of the communities in the county formed groups to make improvements,” she said of the non-profit Tabor committee.
The group has undertaken several other high profile projects, from a colorful new mural on the former Weber Building to a new drinking fountain at Tabor City Park to new “welcome” signs around town, as well as new decorative lamp posts and a wooden train play area in a pocket park on Main Street. But the mini golf course may just be the most ambitious yet, Shepherd said.
“The train was a big deal because the kids at the high school shop classes built it so they had some ownership in it but this really involved a lot of community members and donors to get it done,” she said.
The project involved heavy grading to level the ground and landscape work to put on the finishing touches when the course was laid out.
“It was all local help,” she said. “I think we spent about $1,500 for all the materials but the labor, it was all free.”
The committee has been working on what exactly to do with the land since the City of Tabor purchased the plot in 2018 with a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant and donations. An adjacent parcel to the south of Casey’s was also acquired for the park.
All of the funds for construction of the park were donated by businesses and individuals. The labor was also donated. Shepherd and the committee designed the course and came up with a layout for the site. Retired local carpenter Gary Moles did most of the construction work.
“I took some plans over to him and he said yeah he could do it,” she said. He came up with some designs of his own. He did all the labor for free. He said when he was done, he’d had enough making holes.”
The course features nine holes of varying difficulty, framed by green-treated lumber with artificial turf greens. Each hole features a hazard or barrier. Local artist Janet Vinton has provided farm animal paintings for each hole and Shepherd plans to continually update the theme to each season.
Down the road the plan is to add a gazebo and a fence along with lighting.
Players can bring their own ball and putter or borrow both from the nearby Tabor Public Library.
Recently, a busload of employees with developmental disabilities from Nishna Productions in Shenandoah came out to play a round on the new course.
“They told me they can’t do any indoor activities because of the virus so they were happy to bring them over and get them outside,” Shepherd said. “The community really seems to have responded. We’ve had a lot of individuals and businesses contribute and support it.”
Shepherd herself just recently played the course for the first time and while she didn’t keep score, the nine holes have a little something for everyone.
“My husband keeps telling me we need to put a par on each hole but that just depends on what obstacles each course has on it,” she said. “It’s fun and I think people enjoy it.”
