Built by hand, run by family
In 1991, brothers Lee and Bob Stoddard cleared a stretch of land on Route 27 and built Boothbay's first miniature golf course hole by hole. A year later they added the Ice Cream Hut. In 1993 they raised Lincoln County's only covered bridge — modeled after a span in Ashuelot, New Hampshire — and rounded things out with an arcade in 1994.
Lee built that bridge to keep a promise to his father. During World War II, Kenneth Stoddard served as a Navy ship repairman in the South Pacific, gathering seashells on every island stop and mailing them home packed in fiberglass insulation. Those boxes sat in an attic for years until Lee turned the bridge into the Kenneth E. Stoddard Shell Museum — now home to thousands of shells from around the world.
Lee went on to join the U.S. Pro Mini Golf Association in 1997, help bring the national U.S. Open to Maine in 2008, and earn induction into the Pro Mini Golf Hall of Fame in 2015. After he passed away in 2018, his widow Nancy kept the lighthouse lit, the course growing, and the tournament running in his name — and still greets golfers on the course today.
Stop by the lighthouse when you arrive — Lee recorded his own account of how Dolphin Mini Golf came to be, and it plays on loop just inside.
