History

The beautiful Spanish-style Redlands Community Center is a stately building atop a forested hill overlooking Grand Junction. The building was built as the Grand Junction Country Club and Golf Course with 160 acres and a nine-hole golf course. It was the grand design of fifty professional businessmen living in the Redlands in the 1920’s. On August 18, 1921, the Redlands Country Club officially opened. The golf course was set in oiled sand greens. The soil was too hard to insert a wooden tee, so the golfers would make a moistened sand tee by mixing a little water with the sand. Water cans sat at each hole.

The great depression eventually took its toll on the Club and it was sold to the Redlands Women’s Club for the meager sum of $5,000. The Women’s Club consisted of 68 members in 1935, a representation of virtually every family living in the Redlands. The first meeting of the Redlands Women’s Club in this building was February 10, 1937. It took the women eight years, eight carnivals, 20 quilts, and many fine dinners served to retire the mortgage.

The Redlands Club became the Redlands Community Center in 1983, and the non-profit Foundation continues their mission of community service while preserving and rehabilitating the facility.

The Redlands Community Center Foundation obtained a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status organized exclusively to raise funds to be used for the restoration, maintenance, preservation and rehabilitation of the building. Therefore all funds given to the Foundation are tax deductible. As an event center, proceeds from weddings, private parties, business and club meetings, memorials and other social functions support the facility.

In September, 1994, the building was placed on the Colorado Historical Society Register. The Center has been bringing people together since 1921!