Gateway to the Past
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In this 1910 home game, Miami wins 19–0 with Wittenberg “being unable to stop the onslaught of the crimson.”
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If you ever attended a football game at Miami Field, you might have passed through this turnstile or one of its three associates. Millions did from the time the field’s west entrance was built in 1919–1920 until the stadium’s final game in November 1982.
The west ticket gate was actually part of a major renovation of the field, which opened in 1896, but only after the university cleared and drained four leased acres of the Botanical Gardens.
First called Athletic Field, then the Athletic Grounds, Alumni Field, and finally Miami Field, it was at the northwest corner of High and Patterson — where Pearson Hall and the psychology building stand today.
As for that major spruce-up, the Feb. 10, 1915, Miami University Bulletin reported: “Some radical improvements are being made on the athletic park. When these are completed, Miami will have one of the best athletic fields in the state. Already the new baseball diamond has cost about $250, while the work so far on the football field and the track amounts to over $800.”
By 1929, attendees had a choice of two entrances to pass through to watch football and other athletic contests, commencements, and such major events as the Sesquicentennial Pageant and presidential candidate John Kennedy’s convocation speech, both in 1959.
Although this turnstile is in Special Collections and University Archives, the classes of 1959 and 1960 raised money to move the gates to Yager Stadium in 1983.