Savage Stadium
Location: Lamar
County: Prowers County
Date Constructed: 1941
Built by: WPA
Architectural Description:
The stadium and stone wall are made of coursed quarry-faced ashlar stone. The stadium rises approximately two stories on the street side and has new aluminum bleachers on the field side. The door to the back of the stadium has a flat-arch lintel, and the windows that flank it, five on each side, have semi-elliptical arches and dress-faced keystones. There is a ca. 1950s press-box with vertical wood siding and a shed roof centered at the top of the stone stadium. The stone wall along the east side of the property has a base of random ashlar masonry.
Historical Background:
The stadium and stone wall complex was a WPA project. The application for the project stated that it would replace a “poorly graded” field and “unsafe and unsightly” wooden grandstand. In 1934, a FERA project had installed lights for the field, but the upgrade was insufficient and talks began in 1939 about overhauling the complex. The plans for the stadium were done by city park superintendent, V.D. Rouse. The total project cost was estimated at around $33,000. The sandstone, which came from a quarry only ten miles away, was also being used on the WPA Junior College addition and the WPA county welfare housing complex. Because of the high demand for the stone, the quarry could not keep up with orders and the stadium project fell behind schedule. Federal and state budget cuts and the harvest of 1941 caused further delay. When it was completed in 1942, it was one of the state’s last significant WPA projects to finish. The press-box was added around 1950.