This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Cottonwood Heights » After 54 years of friends, fun and firing, Dave Winburn will soon have nowhere to go.
The 82-year-old has been making his almost daily drive up Gun Club Road to visit with his buddies and pull the trigger a few times at the Holladay Gun Club since it opened in 1954.
On New Year's Day, Winburn will join a collection of shooters for the club's annual membership breakfast. They'll reminisce about the good old days, take part in a fun shoot and head home. It will be the last time the sound of rifles, shotguns, pistols and muzzleloaders will be heard at this site near the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon.
"I always got stuck volunteering for things because I always seem to be around when they need somebody," said Winburn, who served 11 years as president of the Holladay Gun Club between 1962 and 2002. "I'm not sure what I will do when I can't come here."
Rumors of the gun club's demise have been come and gone for decades. But thanks largely to what current president Keith Biesinger calls a generous and friendly lease agreement with Walker Development, Holladay has survived the threat of encroaching development.
In the end, it was the need of the other lessee on the property, Granite Construction, that will force the club to holster its guns. Precious gravel lies in the ground under the club office, the 5-stand sporting clay station, the various ranges and the automatic weapons pit.
The club already lost its trapshooting field because Walker Development has begun a cleanup process using mining equipment to extract lead from the soil. The same process will be used on the berms at the firing ranges when the club is shut down.
Those are the same berms Winburn remembers creating by digging post holes and exploding blackpowder some 40-odd years ago.
Holladay Gun Club currently has 600 members, with a peak double that number four years ago. That's a lot of shooters who will be looking for a new place to plink.
Officials at Holladay have been working with Salt Lake County Councilman Randy Horiuchi to find a new location for the club. Their efforts have been repeatedly shot down, but the councilman seems resolute to give Winburn and others a place to shoot.
"I'm still working very hard to try and provide an alternative location. There are 100,000 recreational shooters in the valley and along the Wasatch and there are not enough places to shoot," said Horiuchi. "We have spent millions and millions and millions of dollars on soccer fields, ball fields and pools. Recreational shooters are taxpayers and members of our community. They deserve an opportunity to have their recreational pursuits satisfied."
There are other gun ranges in the Salt Lake Valley, but the state-run Lee Kay Hunter Education Center and others like it near the Wasatch Front have limited operating hours and there is no facility on the east side of the valley.
Horiuchi is concerned that without a place like Holladay Gun Club, the number of people illegally setting up for target practice will increase, placing more pressure on law enforcement officials.
With little hope of reopening Holladay at a different location in the Salt Lake Valley, Horiuchi has turned his attention to two law enforcement gun ranges in Parleys Canyon. The idea is to use county money and roughly $80,000 in equipment from the Holladay Gun Club to expand the ranges and open them to the public.
One of the sites, simply referred to as the "Sheriffs' Range," is about halfway between the mouth of Parleys and the Mountain Dell exit on Interstate 80. But the range is small and there is little room for expansion.
The most viable option is the Hendriksen Range, on Salt Lake City property south of I-80 at the Mountain Dell exit in Parleys Canyon, and leased to the Salt Lake City Police Officers Mutual Aid Society.
"I'm trying to get the city to agree to allow us to come in and enlarge the range and make it environmentally green," Horiuchi said. "Holladay [Gun Club] has been terrific in offering their expertise to help create and run the range and in donating much of the equipment we would need."
The city has expressed concerns about expanding the range and increasing use at the site because it is watershed, but Horiuchi says plans for the new range would not only be environmentally friendly , but would include a cleanup of the decades of shooting that has already gone on at Hendriksen.
"This is about a good a compromise as we can have," said Biesinger, speaking on behalf of the Holladay Gun Club. "The club may cease to exist but we can continue our legacy by helping make it possible for shooters to keep shooting."
Cottonwood Heights » From an informal group of rifle shooters known as the Ridge Runners, to hosting state and national competitions, the Holladay Gun Club has always aimed to provide a safe and fun way to enjoy the sport.
But there were moments of disagreement.
Back in 1962, when 11-time Holladay Gun Club president Dave Winburn was first running for the office, things got a little interesting during the election.
Shooters from different disciplines were having trouble getting along, which was one of the reasons Winburn decided to run.
"There were fist fights outside the clubhouse," Winburn said. "I had shot all the guns a little, so I knew everybody. I decided to set up a shoot with trophies, but everybody had to shoot shotgun, rifle and pistol. They had to borrow each other's guns."
It worked.
To Winburn's knowledge, and he is most likely to know, there has only been one fatality at the range and it was a suicide. There have been accidents, mostly ricochets, but Winburn calls them cases of "dumb" and not accidents.
"I'm quite proud of the club," he said. "We've been able to keep it a shooters' club and keep it safe at the same time."
As with any good club, stories of members develop into legends over time. Winburn, who started at Holladay as a muzzleloader, was known for his prowess with all guns.
Current president Keith Biesinger recalls the first time he met Winburn.
"He was shooting skeet with a Winchester model 12 pump and smoking a pipe," Biesinger said. "The birds were crossing. He shot one bird right handed, put the pipe in his pocket, put the gun in his left hand and shoot the other clay before it hit the ground. He did it at every single station."