The Matchcover Storyteller

This shiny 40-strike, front strike matchcover from Superior Match in Chicago is probably from about 1965. Mind you, this is a “best guess” based on dates in history.

The Oakwood Hills Golf Course was already in operation in 1965 when Roger and Betty Vander Wyst opened their supper club in 1965. The golf course was literally at their back door in Combined Locks, Wisconsin, a bit southwest of Green Bay. Roger had been a millworker at the nearby paper mill, but with a supper club dream. He first owned a tavern or two in Little Chute before he got his supper club in ‘65.

Despite the name on the matchcover, it has been The Lox Club for almost its entire existence. It’s a fixture and still thrives today, but the golf course is long gone (developed like so many other small neighborhood courses) and replaced by a quintessential suburban-style neighbourhood named Oakwood Hills and with streets like Fairway Drive.

As for the town, it started life as a 19th century mill site and then town. It takes its name from a set of locks — a combination, one might say — making the Fox River that skirts the community navigable for commercial vessels. . A paper mill followed and is still “sort of” there today as McKinley Paper & Packaging.

I wanted to get a scorecard from Oakwood to make a combo; learning that was never going to happen led to this!