The Stadium Hills Golf Course was a 9 hole golf course located where Pioneer High School is now.

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Remember that this was Ann Arbor in the 1940s. Its population was 35,000 and Stadium Boulevard was called the "cut-off" or route around Ann Arbor. The business end of Stadium was sparsely sprinkled with the likes of Tice's Tavern and Sportsman's Park, and in 1947 Ralph and Bernice Moore opened their A&W Root Beer stand. Still to come in the next decade came Ann Arbor's first 15-cent hamburger place, McDonald's (now Lewis Jewelers), Everett's Drive-In, and Big George's Home Appliance Mart. The university was still a few years from deciding to double its size, high school football was played at Wines Field, and the nine-hole Stadium Hills Golf Course sat where Pioneer is located today. Southbound Seventh Street ended at Stadium and westbound Pauline turned to gravel at Fritz Park and also ended at Stadium. Michigan played its basketball, ran indoor track, and wrestled at Yost Field House. Hockey was played at the Coliseum at Fifth Avenue and Hill Street, and most Ann Arborites had yet to see their first television. Such were the times that Rich grew up in.

Here’s my Main to Michigan Stadium walk in 1939 in brief that for you will be as foreign as a walk through downtown Belgrade. We start at the Wuerth Theatre. Then comes Muehlig and Lanphear’s Hardware, Fiegels, the Orpheum, Joe’s Snappy Service, Odd Fellows, Staebler’s Service Station, the Edison, down the hill to Claude Brown’s old house, Gill’s Lumber, Miller’s Ice Cream, Kollender Drug, Conoco Gas, American Legion, McDonald’s Ice Cream, the stadium, kitty corner from the south scoreboard, Stadium Hills Golf Course. Going west on Stadium, forests and fields to Barnard Heights, then turning north and downhill, wheat, corn, alfalfa. Past Pauline, muskrat pond and, finally, Liberty with Tice’s Tavern, Sportsman’s Park softball stadium.

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