Breese Stevens Field
| Location | Madison, WI, USA |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 43°04′59″N 89°22′23″W / 43.08306°N 89.37306°WCoordinates: 43°04′59″N 89°22′23″W / 43.08306°N 89.37306°W |
| Owner | City of Madison |
| Surface | artificial turf |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1926 |
| Architect | Claude & Starck |
| Tenants | |
| University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison Blues Edgewood College Madison 56ers Madison Radicals Madison East High School |
–1993 1924–1942 1990–Present 2005–Present 2013–Present 2015–Present |
Breese Stevens Municipal Athletic Field is an athletic field owned by the city of Madison, Wisconsin and operated by Big Top Baseball. Located eight blocks northeast of the Wisconsin State Capitol on the Madison Isthmus, it is the oldest extant masonry grandstand in Wisconsin.
The field is named in honor of Breese J. Stevens (1834–1903), a mayor of Madison and a University of Wisconsin–Madison regent, on the wishes of his widow who sold the land to the city. This complex is a Madison Landmark and was nominated by the Madison Trust in 1995. It was accepted for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places and the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places by the Wisconsin Historic Preservation Review Board on November 21, 2014.
Breese Stevens Field is home to Edgewood College teams; Madison East High School teams, the Madison 56ers amateur soccer team; and the professional Ultimate frisbee team, the Madison Radicals. It has hosted Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association's girls' soccer tournaments and an exhibition match of Australian Football. The field has also hosted ice skating, boxing, wrestling, track and field, midget car racing, rodeos, circuses, drum and bugle corps competitions, concerts, and fraternal and religious gatherings.
Addressing the concern that Madison's sports facilities were insufficient, the city council began efforts to establish a new athletic field in 1922. After first trying to obtain the land by donation, a joint committee of the council and the Association of Commerce considered sites such as Olbrich Park and what is today's Georgia O'Keeffe Middle School playground. The council ultimately selected a block of 18 lots fronting East Washington Avenue and bounded by Mifflin, Brearly and Paterson streets. The site also had the advantage of being midway between Central High School and East High School. The property was owned by the widow of Breese Stevens. To help raise money for the project, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Burr W. Jones consented to the selling of property at Livingston and East Washington that he had previously donated to the city as a playground, on condition the new athletic field be named for him. On September 28, 1923 the city council acceded to Mrs. Stevens's terms that the field be named for her late husband instead, and purchased the property for $35,000.
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