Golf in Carlisle

Carlisle is the Cumberland County seat, a college town anchored by Dickinson College and home to the US Army War College at Carlisle Barracks — two institutions that give the borough an intellectual and military character unusual for a Pennsylvania county seat of its size. The Cumberland Valley's broad agricultural floor spreads north and south from town, with Blue Mountain visible to the north and South Mountain closing the southern horizon. Carlisle served as a major supply depot during the Revolutionary War and witnessed the Confederate Army's passage during the Gettysburg campaign — the courthouse was shelled by Confederate artillery in 1863. The region's limestone geology produces the rich farmland that made the Cumberland Valley one of Pennsylvania's most agricultural counties, and the same soils give golf courses here firm, fast-draining conditions that suit the game. Dickinson's campus and the Barracks' institutional presence make Carlisle a more educated, internationally connected community than its rural county position might suggest.