Seattle Civic Stadium

Location

Seattle Civic Stadium was located on 5th Avenue North and Harrison Street, which is in the modern day Seattle Center, near Queen Anne Hill. It was built in 1928 to be used primarily for football and for outdoor boxing in the summer.

Boxing

Civic Stadium's importance as a boxing venue coincided with the legalization of boxing in Washington on June 8, 1933, and the concurrent rise of Seattle's greatest draw Freddie Steele and local promoter Nate Druxman. Steele would win the World Middleweight title over Eddie (Babe) Risko in the stadium on July 11, 1936, and would lose it in Civic Stadium to Seattle's Al Hostak on July 26, 1938. Steele's match with Al Hostak would draw 35,000 fans, in what is generally considered as the biggest local boxing match in Seattle history.

Hostak would fight two more title fights at Civic Stadium, regaining his title against Solly Kreiger in a rematch in 1939, and then losing it to Tony Zale in 1940.

Baseball

On July 4, 1932 Dugdale Park the home of the Seattle Indians, was burned down by serial-arsonist Robert Driscoll. After box seats, fences, and additional lighting were installed, the Indians relocated to Civic Stadium for their opener on July 19, 1932. The stadium which was constructed for football, was a horrible fit for baseball. Covered bleachers were only on the 1st baseline and rightfield, and the leftfield line was only 265 feet away. Arguably the worst feature was the lack of grass on the playing surface, which prompted one player to say, "If a horse got stranded out there, he would have starved to death. It was nothing but rocks."

Baseball would move to Sick's Stadium on June 17, 1938.

Aftermath

Civic Stadium was torn down in 1945. On its site Memorial Stadium, which still stands, was built in 1947.

Sources

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer (July 14, 1999)