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Arlington Stadium

Arlington Stadium
Arlington Stadium 1988.jpg
Former names Turnpike Stadium (1965–1971)
Location 1500 South Copeland Rd.
Arlington, Texas 76011
Coordinates 32°45′23″N 97°5′5″W / 32.75639°N 97.08472°W / 32.75639; -97.08472Coordinates: 32°45′23″N 97°5′5″W / 32.75639°N 97.08472°W / 32.75639; -97.08472
Owner The City of Arlington
Operator The City of Arlington
Capacity 10,600 (1965–1969)
20,500 (1970–1971)
35,185 (1972)
35,698 (1973–1977)
41,097 (1978–1980)
41,284 (1981–1983)
43,508 (1984–1990)
43,521 (1991–1993)
Field size Left Field – 330 ft
Left-Center – 380 ft
Center Field – 400 ft
Right-Center – 380 ft
Right Field – 330 ft
Backstop – 60 ft
Surface Grass
Construction
Broke ground April 15, 1964
Opened April 23, 1965
Closed October 3, 1993
Demolished 1994
Construction cost US$1.9 million
($14.4 million in 2017 dollars)
Architect Preston M. Geren Architects & Engineers
General contractor Walker Construction Co.
Tenants
Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs (TL) (1965–1971)
UT-Arlington Mavericks (NCAA) (1970–1976)
Texas Rangers (MLB) (1972–1993)

Arlington Stadium was a baseball stadium located in Arlington, Texas, United States, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. It served as the home for the Texas Rangers (MLB) from 1972 until 1993, when the team moved into The Ballpark in Arlington (now Globe Life Park in Arlington), which has been the team's current home since 1994.

The stadium was built in 1965 as Turnpike Stadium, a minor league ballpark seating 10,000 people named for the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike (Interstate-30 aka Tom Landry Highway). The Fort Worth Cats of the Texas League moved there as the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs, and played there for the next seven years, setting many Texas League attendance records, especially after it expanded to 20,500 seats in 1970.

However, the stadium's real purpose was to attract a major league team to the Metroplex. It had been built to major league specifications, and was designed to be expandable to up to 50,000 seats. Due to its location in a natural bowl, only minimal renovations (such as connecting dugouts directly to the clubhouses) would be necessary to ready it for a big-league team. Although it was built primarily for baseball, its general shape was very similar to the major league multi-purpose stadiums that were beginning to emerge in the mid-1960s. The Metroplex had been mentioned as a possible expansion site since the 1950s, and Arlington Mayor Tom Vandergriff figured that Arlington, halfway between the two cities, would be the best site for a prospective major league team.

In 1971, the struggling Washington Senators announced their intentions to move to the Metroplex as the Texas Rangers. The stadium was expanded to seat over 35,700 people, and was renamed "Arlington Stadium". It was the fourth former minor league park converted for use by a major-league team (not counting instances where minor-league parks served as temporary homes), after Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, Kansas City's Municipal Stadium and Minnesota's Metropolitan Stadium.


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