Texas Stadium

Texas Stadium

Final season, November 2008
Location	2401 East Airport Freeway Irving, Texas, U.S.
Coordinates	32°50′24″N 96°54′40″W / 32.840°N 96.911°W / 32.840; -96.911Coordinates: 32°50′24″N 96°54′40″W / 32.840°N 96.911°W / 32.840; -96.911
Owner	City of Irving
Operator	Texas Stadium Corp
Capacity	65,675
Surface	Artificial turf - Texas Turf (1971–1995) - AstroTurf (1996–2002) - RealGrass (2002–2008)
Construction
Broke ground	January 26, 1969 (1969-01-26)
Opened	October 24, 1971
Closed	December 25, 2008
Demolished	April 11, 2010 (2010-04-11)
Construction cost	US$35 million ($207 million in 2017 dollars)
Architect	A. Warren Morey
General contractor	JW Bateson Co., Inc.
Tenants
Dallas Cowboys (NFL) (1971–2008) Dallas Tornado (NASL) (1972–1975, 1980–1981) SMU Mustangs (NCAA) (1979–1986)

Texas Stadium was an American football stadium located in Irving, Texas, a suburb west of Dallas.

Opened in October 1971, it was the home field of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys for 38 seasons, through 2008, and had a seating capacity of 65,675. In 2009, the Cowboys moved to the $1.15 billion AT&T Stadium in Arlington, which officially opened on May 27.

Texas Stadium was demolished on April 11, 2010 by a controlled implosion.

The Cowboys had played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas since their inception in 1960. However, by the mid-1960s, founding owner Clint Murchison, Jr. felt that the Fair Park area of the city had become unsafe and downtrodden, and did not want his season ticket holders to be forced to go through it. Murchison was denied a request by mayor Erik Jonsson to build a new stadium in downtown Dallas as part of a municipal bond package.

Murchison envisioned a new stadium with sky boxes and one in which attendees would have to pay a personal seat license as a prerequisite to purchasing season tickets. With two games left for the Cowboys to play in the 1967 season, Murchison and Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm announced a plan to build a new stadium in the northwest suburb of Irving.