The Way We Were - Junge Stadium
Hidden: 02/01/2009
To good of a cache to let it go away.
In the 1950's I ran on the track here in the Joplin Junior Olympic Games. I still have gold medal.
ReBorn by gracie and me
A good friend of mine gave me some historic Joplin postcards as a gift. I found them so fascinating that I wanted to make a series of postcard caches to show the way Joplin used to be.
This is a small cache in the parking lot of Junge Field. Another park and grab it should be easy to retrieve unless a sporting event is being held in the stadium. You may not even have to get out of your car to retrieve it. Please bring a pen as the cache only contains a log.
In 1925, August Junge, president of Junge Baking Company, purchased a 12-acre tract of land between 13th and 15th Streets, from the alley west of Jackson to the railroad tracks on Picher Avenue. Then he donated the property to the Joplin School District for its future development as a school athletic field. However, with the tough economic climate of the Depression, the dream took almost a decade to come to fruition. Construction began in the winter of 1933. Architect Trueman E. Martinie designed the fifty-foot high, reinforced concrete structure. The front facade, with its graceful arches, suggests the Spanish mission style of architecture. The stadium's $75,000 price tag required some creative financing-donations of money and equipment by Joplin businessmen and the Junior Chamber of Commerce plus two special Civil Works Administration appropriations from the federal government. A capacity crowd of 3,500 filled the stands for the dedication ceremony in September 1934. Festivities that day included musical and military maneuvers, speeches, and the crowd-pleasing 30-0 victory of Joplin's Red and Green "gridiron forces " over the"gallant, hard-fighting " Baxter Springs team. Sources:Gibbons, Charles. Angling in the Archives.