Arlington Stadium
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| 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°WCoordinates: 32°45′23″N 97°5′5″W / 32.75639°N 97.08472°W |
| 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 | |
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Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs (TL) (1965–1971) UT-Arlington Mavericks (NCAA) (1970–1976) Texas Rangers (MLB) (1972–1993) |
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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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