The Cultural Landscape Foundation has designated the course an “at-risk cultural landscape” and wants the park board to seek National Register of Historic Places status. Foundation President Charles Birnbaum says Hiawatha was the first golf course in the upper Midwest to admit Black golfers in the late 1930s. “There are precious few cultural landscapes left to preserve that had meaning for Black residents of Minneapolis nearly a century ago,” Birnbaum says.

In July 2021, C+RB wrote that Hiawatha Golf Course, a historically significant facility in Minneapolis, Minn., where Black golfers have played for generations, may be taken from 18 to nine holes to reduce the need for the city to pump enormous amounts of ground­water from the constantly flooding grounds.

Now FOX9 is reporting the future of the course that has been around for more than 80 years could soon be up in the air once again.

“Our mission is to connect people to places,” said Cultural Landscape Foundation President Charles Birnbaum.

The foundation said Hiawatha was the first golf course in the upper Midwest to admit Black golfers in the late 1930s, FOX9 reported. The organization has now designated the course an “at-risk cultural landscape” and wants the park board to see if it is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In a city that redlined Black families into segregated neighborhoods, then ran highways through those neighborhoods, Hiawatha was a constant, a Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune columnist wrote. Black golfers have played at Hiawatha since the 1930s, generation after generation.

“There are precious few cultural landscapes left to preserve that had meaning for Black residents of Minneapolis nearly a century ago,” Birnbaum told the Star Tribune. “At the golf course, we have a rare opportunity to tell the story of a place that still exists. So why would we think about erasing it?”

Minneapolis has erased so much of the city’s Black history that when Birnbaum interviewed community leaders about culturally significant landmarks, few could point to anything larger than a building, the Star Tribune columnist wrote.

Twice the park board has voted against going ahead with a master plan that would reduce the 18-hole course to nine holes, and include other amenities like BMX trails and a dog patio (https://clubandresortbusiness.com/aquatic-driving-range-bmx-track-among-new-ideas-floated-for-hiawatha-gc/), to address flooding issues, FOX9 reported. But after the last election, seven of the nine park board commissioners are new, and advocates for keeping the course as it is are worried the new board could revisit the revised design.

“In managing change, it’s more than water. It’s the cultural lifeways of a place that we see as nationally significant,” said Birnbaum.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation believes there’s a way to solve the water issues and keep the 18-hole golf course, FOX9 reported. With issues of race and equity playing out across the country, the organization says doing both would be a hole in one.

“The story of Hiawatha golf, it is for all of us,” said Birnbaum.