Born and raised in Guelph, Ontario, Arthur Cutten led a life working with stocks in Chicago, yet he always thought of his hometown. Though Cutten had not been a resident of Guelph for nearly 40 years, his philanthropy thrived in his hometown of Guelph. In 1929, he gifted the golf course and golf club called the Cutten Club (or Cutten Fields) to the city of Guelph. The course was $2,000,000 dollars and was aimed to be a hotel, golf course, and a general recreation area.
The history of the man who funded this course get more and more interesting though. When the 1929 stock crash occurred, Cutten survived it despite being heavily involved in the Chicago grain market, he came out of it with supposedly $80,000,000 dollars. However, on April 11, 1934, the Federal Government had charged Cutten for failing to report millions of dollars in grain holdings, as well as tax evasion. This led to Cutten being banned from trading grain. As the years passed, his health deteriorated and he passed away in his sleep due to a heart attack on June, 24th, 1936. Upon his death, the U.S. Federal Government dropped his criminal charges yet still aimed to collect his unsettled taxes that he owed. The amount would climb to the price of 1,132,000 dollars by the end of 1936. Yet when they went to access this fund, they learned that his total wealth was only 350,000 dollars.
Today, this still remains a mystery. Some believe Cutten transferred the missing money (nearly $90,000,000) to the government of Canada, others believe that he went broke from the stock crash, but many believed that he had hidden this money in the walls of the Cutten Club itself. Through the many years people have scoured the course using metal detectors, tried to dig up the course itself and much more in hopes of finding the money that was believed to be hidden in the course or the club, though has never been found. This history behind the course adds an interesting perspective to this public history site (as well Arthur Cutten is my great great uncle so I have a special interest in his life).
https://guelphmuseums.ca/arthur-cutten-nd-and-mystery/
Public History in Practice 