Kenan Memorial Stadium - History

History

The previous home of the Tar Heels had been Emerson Field, which had opened in 1916 on the current site of Davis Library. By 1925, it was obvious that that 2,400-seat facility was not adequate for the increasing crowds. Expansion was quickly ruled out since the baseball team also used it, and any new football seats would have been too far away for baseball.

Funding for the stadium was originally supposed to come from alumni donations. William R. Kenan, Jr., a dairy farmer from Lockport, New York who would later become a prominent businessman in Miami, got word of the initial plans and donated a large gift to build the stadium and an adjoining field house. Kenan was an 1894 UNC graduate and grandson of one of UNC's original trustees. He persuaded UNC to build the stadium as a memorial to his parents, William R. Kenan and Mary Hargrave Kenan.

Ground was broken in November 1926. It was completed in August 1927. At the time, it was located on the far southern portion of campus, but expansions over the years have resulted in the stadium now being near the center of campus.

The stadium officially opened on November 12, 1927. The Tar Heels defeated Davidson College 27-0, with the first touchdown in the new stadium by Edison Foard. The first game at Kenan Stadium brought in 9,000 spectators. The stadium was officially dedicated to the Kenan family on Thanksgiving Day in 1927 in front of 28,000 fans, after the Tar Heels beat the Virginia Cavaliers 14-13.

The original stadium - the lower level of the current stadium's sideline seats - seated 24,000 people. However, temporary bleachers were added to the end zones to accommodate overflow crowds, allowing Kenan to accommodate over 40,000 people at times. This happened fairly often over the years, especially during the Choo Choo Justice era of the late 1940s.

Read more about this topic:  Kenan Memorial Stadium

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.
    Stefan Zweig (18811942)

    He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)