news + views Greenwood Cemetery on City Park Avenue, and Athletic Park, across the street from Jesuit High school on Carrollton Avenue at Banks street. in 1909, Tulane moved its games on campus to a 10,000-seat grandstand and playing field. That first “stadium” actually was built to host a religious concert and a convention that coincided with a visit from President Howard Taft, who came to New Orleans to promote transportation improvement projects along the river during a speech before the Lakes to the Gulf waterways Convention. That the facility also could host sporting events — beginning with the Oct. 30, 1909, Tulane-Mississippi A&M contest, which Taft reportedly glimpsed — was apparently a collateral benefit. Media reports at the time predicted the facility would be the largest and finest in the south, thanks largely to
ball field inside the oval track. it wasn’t designed primarily for football; it was designed for track and field events, with a gridiron almost as an afterthought. Tulane played football at the site that fall. City officials and the general public seemed to be squarely behind the project. The city had no zoning laws at the time. seven years later, Tulane recognized the growing popularity of college football and built a new stadium where the trackcentric structure stood on Freret street. The Lionel F. Favrot firm constructed the 30-tier, concrete grandstand for about $27,700, according to documents in the Tulane University Archives. The facility had permanent seating and could accommodate between 2,000 and 2,500 people. A large chunk of the project’s funding came from private donors, including Tulane students. when the second stadium was dedicated on Oct. 27, 1917, it was described
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Tulane’s largest stadium sat at the rear of the campus. This view is from the Audubon Park entrance on St. Charles Avenue. funding from the local Progressive Union. Once Taft left New Orleans, the grandstand reverted to Tulane’s control. A year later, that same grandstand helped form what became the university’s inaugural stadium, when the L-shaped, wooden bleachers were moved to a site on Freret street, where the university was creating a state-ofthe art track-and-field facility to host the fall 1910 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national meet. After the AAU meet, ownership of the facility was transferred to Tulane. The first facility had a cinder track and floodlights to allow athletes to train at night, as well as a baseball and foot-
in the New Orleans Item as having “a playing field so perfect in detail and arranged with such skill as to bear comparison with any in the country. experts who have seen quite a few pronounced it ‘the finest thing of its kind in the south.’” Again, Tulane appeared to have popular support. Mayor Martin Behrman declared, “New Orleans is proud of you,” according to the Item. “it is amazing to me that a hundred years ago, the need for a better stadium on campus was felt so strongly by the entire New Orleans community that a ... plan was derived to raise the necessary funding,” says Ann Case, director of the Tulane University Archives. A timeline published in The Times-Picayune in the mid-1970s says the second stadium was on the site of the former etienne de Bore plantation, where sugar was granulated in the U.s. for the first time. The facility was bounded by McAlister Drive, willow, Calhoun and Freret streets. within a few years, however, Green
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Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > june 26 > 2012
Don’t let vacation or festivals be excuses to fall out of the habit of keeping yourself healthy!
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