Remembering A Great Amphitheater

So what stadium was described this way after its first game: 

"An engineering wonder that takes its place among the greatest structures in the country."

If you guessed Palmer Stadium, you'd be correct. Opening Day, by the way, was Nov. 12, 1914, when Princeton lost to Yale 19-0.

In fact, Palmer Stadium when it opened was listed as one of only five actual football stadiums in the country. Can you name the other four? Hint - Franklin Field, which bills itself as the oldest stadium in the country, is not one of them.

TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs for that one.

In the meantime, this is was in the Daily Princetonian after that first game, which drew 41,000 to the new building:

Despite the fact that the new Palmer Stadium enabled over 8,000 more people to see the Yale-Princeton game this year than ever before, the records of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company show that the number of people carried on that day is only 60 more than it was in 1912. The figures are: 1912, 16,536 passengers; 1914, 16,596. The greatly incresed use of automobiles is largely responsible for this lack of increase in railroad travel.

Can you imagine the sports talk shows and the Twitter debates that would have followed that revelation? 

This was another quote on the new stadium the week after its first game:

As one approaches it he is struck with its impressive columns and dignified proportions. Also, if he is a man who sees farther than his physical vision, he must feel that here is a great tribute to the value of outdoor life and exercise, a great amphitheatre where the thousands will watch the final result of months of that careful training and preparation that makes for better scholarship and all the best results of discipline anal subservience of self for the common good.

That's an early take on what would come to be coined 80 years later "Education Through Athletics" by Ford Family Director of Athletics Emeritus Gary Walters.

The other four schools with "real" stadiums in 1914, at least according to the Prince, were Harvard, Syracuse, Yale — and the College of the City of New York. Cornell and Michigan, it said, were opening their stadiums the following year. 

Opening Day at Palmer Stadium included a P-Rade that started on Cannon Green. There were celebrations and speeches and thanks given to Edgar Palmer, Class of 1903, who donated the money to build the stadium and name it after his father. How much did Edgar give? 

How about $300,000? If that doesn't seem like a lot, consider that today that amount equates to nearly $11 million, which is still only about a quarter of what it took to build Palmer's replacement 83 years later.

And how long did it take to build the new stadium in 1914? Well, construction started the first week of April. The first game was played there in November. There were literally two crews of 50 men each who started at different sides and had a race to the middle, with the winners to get a bonus.

Unfortunately, Palmer Stadium held up like it was built by sides in a race. It wasn't long before the concrete structure, which was built just before a real understanding of how the structure would expand and contract, was really known. As such, with freezing and thawing, the building began to show cracks within 10 years. 

By the time TigerBlog came along in the 1980s, Palmer Stadium was way past its prime. After orange and black netting had to be installed under the entryways to catch the falling rock in the early 1990s, Walters and the rest of the University administration knew it was only a matter of time before a new stadium had to be built.

And so that's what happened. 

Why bring all this up today? 

Why not? It's a July Tuesday. Seemed like a good day to talk about the old place. It may have had no frills and it may not have stood up to the weather, but it was still a place that anyone who was ever there remembers fondly, including TigerBlog. As someone with the word "historian" in his title, he has an incredible appreciation of just how storied a facility Palmer was, and not just in football but also track and field.

And besides, he can't get over how many people he works with never got a chance to see a game there.