This, incidentally, was news to a supervisor at the Minneapolis Water Department, which operates the plant. The Hilltop golf course wrapped around the grounds of the current Ultrafiltration Plant and an adjacent, previously existing, plant in an upside-down “L” shape. A handful of them dot the grounds of the Columbia Heights Ultrafiltration Plant, which processes up to 70 million gallons of Mississippi River water daily, makes it potable, and sends it downhill to nearby Minneapolis. The brick towers near Hilltop's old 12th green are technically referred to as gatehouses. (Right: Minneapolis Star article from April 27, 1943) So, Mike, true confessions: Did you ever bounce one off the tower and onto the green? Most likely, nobody alive remembers it as well as Rak. In this part of Columbia Heights, there is an almost standard response when residents are asked if they know about the neighborhood's history: From the street, neither Rak nor the SUV driver can see the slightest evidence that anyone ever hopped on the bogey train and finished 4-4-5-5-6-5-5 anywhere near here. The house to which Rak refers, and its back yard, now own squatter’s rights to the old 12 th green at Hilltop. Rak caddied at Hilltop in the 1930s and played there in the 1940s. In his mind’s eye, Rak is back on his old stomping grounds: Hilltop Public Golf Links, born in the 1920s, deceased 1946, occupying 150 acres or so in the northwest corner of Columbia Heights. … The green was right back of this house there.” “Where the tower was, balls would hit off that tower and go on the green. “The 12 th hole was 160 yards,” Rak says. To his left, behind a row of houses, beyond a chain-link fence, across a service road that borders the property of the Minneapolis Water Works and up a three-foot rise, is a round, brick tower with a cone-shaped, metal roof, about 25 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. “See that? There’s a tower by the 12 th green,” he says. As the vehicle completes its turn, Rak's memory is jogged. Rak (pronounced “Rock”) is riding shotgun in an SUV turning onto Fairway Drive in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights. (Right: Clifford and Maybeth Bjork on the Hilltop grounds - circa 1940 or 1941. There isn't a tee box or two-tiered green in sight – and there hasn’t been for 65 years. Underfoot, there is asphalt, not bentgrass. It’s a radiant Sunday morning in July 2012, and 91-year-old Mike Rak is in a familiar place. (This story includes revisions made in July 2020.) (Above: Hilltop Public Golf Links, sketched by the late Mike Rak, former standout Hilltop golfer. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses, 1897-1999,"
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