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Camp Randall Stadium and Fieldhouse looking west in 1951, during an ROTC annual inspection.
It’s a study in ironies. The scene of triumph and defeat, in some ways it’s smaller and larger than ever before, lower and taller.
Camp Randall Stadium this autumn turns 100. The UW-Madison will celebrate in a variety of ways with events that serve to unify town and gown, freshmen and alumni.
“It’s not an overstatement to say that millions of people have passed through Camp Randall’s gates and enjoyed countless moments of communal bonding while cheering for the Badgers next to friends and family,” says Jessie Garcia, a Madison native and the state’s first woman sports anchor.
“Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the city without it,” says Garcia.
Camp Randall also happens to be the oldest stadium in the Big Ten. Sort of. Though it was dedicated on Nov. 3, 1917, during a game against Minnesota, as late as 1924 the Wisconsin State Journal observed, “Today the stadium stands in its beginnings.” Completion — and the funds for it — were anticipated in 1930.
In truth Camp Randall Stadium has never been finished. The original 1917 stadium long ago disappeared beneath layers of additions.
The site first served white settlers as the state fairgrounds. When Civil War broke out, namesake Gov. Alexander Randall made it a U.S. Army training camp and then a Confederate prisoner of war camp. Veterans complained when the 50-acre parcel was divided for commercial development. Instead it was given to the university on April 29, 1893.
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The first Camp Randall, constructed of wood in 1895, pictured on a 1908 postcard.
UW football began a decade earlier. It was played on a large muddy area that today, in part, serves as Library Mall. No grandstand, no seats at all. “We’d all stand around the field on all four sides,” alumnus Hugh Bliss told oral historian Robert Gard in the 1960s.
The first Camp Randall stadium was made of wood and built in 1895, stretching west from the corner of Randall and University Avenues. By 1908 it was deemed unsafe, and planning for a new one began. Thanks to a balky Legislature, work didn’t begin until 1915.
That autumn, a section of the old stadium’s bleachers collapsed during a game. Legendary sportswriter Ring Lardner, popular for writing in the vernacular, was there. “They was about 1,000 or maybe 5,000 people in one of the cheering stands and all of a sudden it caved in,” he reported. “All the people was thrown on the ground. Some of ’em was hurt pretty bad, too.”
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The second stadium, shown from the south bleachers in 1930, long ago disappeared beneath layers of additions.
The Legislature then found money and accelerated construction of the new stadium.
UW supervising architect Arthur Peabody intended the facility to be built in the same Italian Renaissance Revival style he used for the Memorial Union, Barnard and Lowell halls, and most of the western campus.
The stadium that debuted in 1917 was much more modest. There was seating for only 7,500, on the west side of the field. It was built of concrete into a natural hill sloping down from Breese Terrace. The top row was 40 feet beneath street level.
Then as now, the new facility was part of a wider athletic complex. A Women’s Field House was built that year, just to the east, set among nine tennis courts and fields for intramural baseball, field hockey and archery, all for women. It fell to other uses and was demolished in 1954. (The men’s Field House didn’t open until 1930. The Armory, or “Red Gym,” previously served men’s sports.)
The old stadium’s grandstand was moved to the new field’s eastern side, adding another 3,000 seats. It burned in 1922. Work began on additional concrete seating.
The northern side of the stadium was open until 1940, when the final “U” shape took form. Two dormitories were placed under the eastern side, and in 1954 were converted to offices.
A novel expansion occurred in 1957, when Camp Randall was made larger by making it smaller. The running track was removed and the playing area was lowered 10 feet. As if the U-shaped stadium were a gigantic funnel, this made the total field surface significantly smaller while allowing for expansion of seating, all around the new, lower “ground level.”
Other major expansions occurred in 1965 and from 2000 to 2005. Today Camp Randall has more than 10 times its opening day capacity. And as for the future?
The campus master plan envisions expanded club and premium seating options on the south end zone, redevelopment of the west side stands and, maybe 15 or 20 years from now, replacement of the upper deck.
Gary Brown, director of campus planning and landscape architecture, says Camp Randall is a magical place in part because it has stood for 100 years. Today, 80,000 people gather on crisp autumn Saturdays to enjoy the Badgers tradition.
“As one of the most historic football stadiums in the Big Ten, Camp Randall has seen a variety of upgrades over the last 100 years,” Brown says. “But it still maintains a sense of great sportsmanship, rivalry and passion for our Badger fans.”