American Legion Memorial Stadium - Legacy, decay, and hope

Charlotte's American Legion Memorial Stadium covered in snow on Christmas 2010

Memorial Stadium in Charlotte is one of the most historic venues in the Carolinas, and rightfully holds a special place in the hearts of many native Charlotteans, myself included. The stadium has an interesting history, it was the first home of high school football in Charlotte when it hosted Charlotte (later called Central) High School -- the physical plant of which now makes up the basis of neighboring Central Piedmont Community College -- before the school's student population was moved to the then new Garinger High School in east Charlotte. Later the stadium became home to the Shine Bowl, a high school all-star game which pits North and South Carolina against each other, before that game became somewhat nomadic, recently playing at several venues in upper South Carolina. The stadium has hosted religious revivals, been a stop for Presidential campaigns, and home to a plethora of professional sports teams including the Charlotte Hornets of the World Football League, who bizarrely relocated from New York City in the midst of the 1974 season, the Carolina Lightnin' of the second-tier American Soccer League who filled the stadium to capacity in 1981 when they beat New York United two-goals-to-one to secure the city's first professional soccer title, and is set to play host the Charlotte Hounds of Major League Lacrosse in 2012.

Unfortunately the stadium has developed a number of problems in recent years, most concerning of which has to be the collapse of the stadium's now removed east stand in 2009, this was the event which spurred the county to seek a structural assessment of the venue which began in March of this year and was completed, and released, last week (.pdf link).

There are some people who want nothing done to the stadium, but that ceased to be a realistic option when the stand collapsed. The assessment, carried out by the Clark-Nexsen Architectural and Engineering firm points out several faults with the facility's physical plant, and several shortcomings in regards to recent health and safety regulations (including several instances where the stadium fails to meet ADA requirements) and presents several short and long term options for repairing, or rebuilding the stadium.

Option 3, considered by some to be a "pie-in-the-sky" option according to an article in the Charlotte Observer, looks to be to be the best of the three as it would widen the field and allow Charlotte to host more events, including the ACC soccer and lacrosse tournaments, the NCAA college cup, women's and youth national team games, and rugby national team games, all of which could bring revenue to the city but would probably see the enormous Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers, as too large of a venue. In addition Major League Lacrosse may see a refurbished stadium as an attractive option for their all-star and playoff events, which would benefit the Hounds as they seek to attract fans to the team and the sport.

South Stand + CPCC.

In addition to potentially hosting professional lacrosse and soccer during the summer months the stadium could return to its roots on Friday nights in autumn and host playoff high school football, something which has gained a tremendous amount of popularity in the city in recent decades given the wild success of Independence, Bulter, and recently Mallard Creek High Schools.

Hopefully a plan to save the historic venue is selected and some of the former glory which has made it so well loved by so many.

(Forgive the snow, the only pictures I had of the stadium were from the Christmas snowfall of 2010).

WPA gem in Elizabeth - Independence Park, Charlotte

Independence Park is a large open space in Charlotte's lovely and fashionable Elizabeth neighborhood, the city's oldest "streetcar suburb", located to the east of Uptown Charlotte, the city's central business district.

The park itself was originally constructed in 1905 and has since undergone numerous additions, including this small, beautiful stone baseball stadium which was a project of the Works Progress Administration in the 1930's.

The stadium sits in a natural bowl in the park's eastern end, across Charlottetowne Avenue from the 21,000-capacity American Legion Memorial Stadium, another WPA project which until the construction of the 74,000-seat Bank of America Stadium in Third Ward, home to the NFL's Carolina Panthers, was Charlotte's largest stadium.

Like -- but infinitely nicer than -- the previously discussed Winterfield Stadium in Eastland, Independence Park Stadium is next to an elementary school, in this case Elizabeth Traditional School, one of the oldest in Charlotte dating back to 1912. Though like Winterfield, Elizabeth does not use the stadium for anything other than recess and physical education.

However, IPS does have a tenant in the form of one of Charlotte's legion ball teams, Charlotte Post 9 actually won the American Legion national baseball championship in 1965, an honor they were beaten to by neighboring Gastonia, who were champions in 1935, and near-by Albemarle and Shelby, in 1940 and 1945 respectively.

One particularly interesting feature of the ground is what I can only assume to be the original dugouts, the concrete floors appear to have been added at a much later date which would explain their unusually small size and lack of a bench. These dugouts have since been replaced by extremely unremarkable, utilitarian dugouts which resemble tool sheds.

To focus solely on the baseball stadium while neglecting the park itself would be almost sinful, so I spent sometime walking around the park, which I, having grown up in neighboring Chantilly, visited several times in my youth (that sounds ridiculous considering I'm 26) without giving a second thought to its outstanding natural, and man-made beauty.

My mother attended the aforementioned Elizabeth Traditional as a child and has very fond memories of this wading pool, which isn't used for that these days. The pool is in the same wonderful stone style as the stadium and rest of the park and actually serves as a memorial to Lillian Arhelger, a physical education teacher from Charlotte's Central High School -- the physical plant of which is now part of Central Piedmont Community College, while the school's records and student body population were transferred to Garinger (my alma mater), in the east Charlotte neighborhood of Shamrock, in 1959 -- who tragically died while trying to save the life of a child who'd fallen over the Glen Burnie Falls in western North Carolina on June 21, 1931.

Above the memorial is the very small Hawthrone Recreation Center, named for its location on Hawthorne Lane, which can be configured to host events like basketball or volleyball in a very small arena-type set up, or plays and musical performances in an auditorium configuration through the use of a stage on the facilities' eastern end.

Across Hawthorne Lane the park turns into small paradise for walkers and cyclists with long, undulating sidewalks set between a vast common area full of towering oaks and magnolias known as Sifford Gardens, named to honor Ernest J. Sifford who served 31 years on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Parks & Recreation Commission.

Gazebos like this are very common throughout the park and add a degree of character, as well as providing the invaluable resource of shade during Charlotte's notoriously brutal summer months.

The western end of the park features a remarkable rose garden, a popular site for weddings, which in all honesty looks much better when it hasn't been the victim of months of repressive heat.

Independence Park is one of my favorite places in what is my favorite neighborhood in Charlotte. The park provides both a necessary resource for recreation and relaxation as well as a source of pride for both Charlotte and Elizabeth. For more pictures click here.

Name: Independence Park Stadium

Location: Elizabeth, Charlotte, North Carolina

Tenants: American Legion baseball

Capacity: ~550

Finished: circa 1934

Pros: Just about everything. Well served by public transit, in addition to being on a public bike route (Clt 9). Located in one of North Carolina's best public parks, and Charlotte's best neighborhood.

Cons: Summer heat would be annoying, but really that's just nitpicking what is a wonderful little place.

While I'm bored - Winterfield Stadium, Charlotte

I'm not entirely sure when Winterfield Stadium -- and I'm not even sure that's the official name, or if it even had a name -- was built, or how I ended up there, but I had these pictures lying around and in my current state boredom decided to do a write-up about them.

The stadium was paired with Winterfield Elementary School -- home of the Bears -- which just so happens to be a rival to my old elementary school, Shamrock Gardens, the Wildcats. Given that basketball is the only interscholastic sport played at the elementary level in Charlotte it's safe to assume this stadium was never used for that purpose and likely operated as a municipal park venue for various local baseball leagues. It's probably through coincidence that the stadium's paint scheme matches Winterfield's school colors.

By 2008 the stadium -- err, venue? -- had definitely seen its better days and was well-and-truly on its last legs. Though I haven't been back since, a look at bing's birds-eye mode shows that the stadium has since been torn down, probably having been deemed a health hazard due to its increasingly derelict nature though the playing field itself remains.

Lots of parks in Charlotte have stadium facilities, for instance Bryant Park and Independence Park are known for their marvelously done stone stadiums, but as far as I know Winterfield Park was the only one this utilitarian in nature, which is probably why I kept the pictures of it, as a local history nerd it kind of intrigues me, even if it was far from spectacular.

Name: Winterfield Stadium

Location: Winterfield Place Charlotte, North Carolina

Tenant(s): n/a

Capacity: ~110

Finished: circa 1970

Demolished: 2010

Pros: Located in a neighborhood (I had to say something good).

Cons: Just about everything else.

I don't sweat, I glisten - Jack D. Hughes Memorial Park, Pineville

Fells more like Hell.

There are certain days where you want to fox trot the Heat Miser's stupid head clear off his equally stupid shoulders, and today was one of those days, but for some reason I still thought it was a good idea to head down to Pineville and checkout a stadium I randomly found on the internet last week and use it as the first entry to this blog which I have no idea how often I'll update.

This is Jack D. Hughes Memorial Park, located at a town park of the same name, near the heart of Pineville. Pineville is surrounded on three sides by the much more well-known, and much larger Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city, and on the south by York County, South Carolina. Saying the word Pineville anywhere in Metrolina (this is an 80's term for the Charlotte, North Carolina/South Carolina MSA) usually conjures up images of car dealerships and shopping centers but beyond these things Pineville is actually a functioning, though small, municipality of about 7,700 people which makes Mecklenburg's southernmost town (not including swaths of Charlotte, which is a chartered as a city) also its smallest town.

Pineville is actually, and somewhat proudly, the birthplace of the 11th President of the United States, James K. Polk, though Polk died in 1849 and Pineville wasn't actually incorporated until 1873. Golf fans may be interested to know that Pineville is not very far from Charlotte's Quail Hollow Club, home to the Wells Fargo Championships, a PGA Tour stop.

The park itself actually dates from the 1960's but the stadium is the result of an ambitious renovation plan by the town of Pineville which was finished in May of 2011. The result was the small, but very neat, clean, and well-kept 250-capacity stadium, two 50-capacity auxiliary baseball fields and a small field for football, soccer, and lacrosse. Despite its very small size the stadium is very well done and something that Pineville can take a great amount of pride in, despite not having a minor league tenant (though the collegiate summer league Pineville Pioneers do call the main stadium home) the stadium has had no trouble finding bookings due to its very cozy, dare I say cute, and attractive nature.

I wanted to catch a game here this weekend, and according to the calender the Charlotte Adult Baseball League was having their All-Star weekend at the time but the blazing heat (the first image isn't an exaggeration, the heat index was at least 111 [44 Celsius] at the time these pictures were taken) prevented me from doing so, maybe some other time.

Overall despite not getting to see a game I'd say the trip (it's not really a journey from East Charlotte, if I'm being honest) was well worth it. The stadium (and yes, it is a stadium) is, for lack of a better word, adorable and a project really well done by Charlotte's little sister. On a more tolerable day I would've checked on Pineville's downtown area more thoroughly, it looks very interesting and as a native Mecklenburger I was pleased that Pineville has some really cool things to offer.

If you'd like to view more photos of Jack D. Hughes Memorial Park click here for my Picasa album (23 photos).

Name: Jack D. Hughes Memorial Park

Location: 513 Main Street Pineville, North Carolina

Tenant(s): Charlotte Catholic Cougars, Charlotte Adult Baseball League, Pineville Pioneers, general use
Capacity: 250 (all-seated, though split between chairbacks and bleachers), auxiliary fields are entirely bleachers.

Finished: May 2011

Pros: Very nice looking park. Small size fits Pineville's needs and has room to expand if needed. Reachable via public transit (CATS bus route 58 goes to Pineville).

Cons: Could probably use a roof over the stand in the Piedmont summers, though this isn't a deal breaker.