Francis Field

Francis Field
Entrance gate of the stadium
Data
place	St. Louis , Missouri
Coordinates	38 ° 38 '52 "  N , 90 ° 18' 49"  W Coordinates: 38 ° 38 '52 "  N , 90 ° 18' 49"  W.
start of building	1899
opening	1902
Renovations	1984
surface	Artificial turf (since 2004)
architect	Cope & Stewardson
capacity	4,000 (since 1984)
Events
1904 Summer Olympics

Francis Field in 2009

Francis Field is a stadium in St. Louis . It is located on the grounds of Washington University and serves the university's sports teams ( track and field , American football, and soccer ). It was built to host the 1904 Summer Olympics , which coincided with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition . Right next to the stadium is the Francis Gymnasium , a gym .

history

Francis Field during the 1904 Olympic Games.

In 1899 Washington University commissioned the university building architecture firm Cope & Stewardson to design a stadium on their premises. In 1902 the construction work was completed. The stadium was by David Francis named, the former governor of Missouri and Minister of the Interior of the United States, which was responsible for significant that the World Expo and the Olympic Games in St. Louis took place.

The grandstand of the stadium was one of the first applications of the then new technology of reinforced concrete . At the beginning the complex had a peculiar shape for today's conditions. The cinder track was a third of a mile (536.44 m) long; it had four curves, three short and one long straight of about 200 m in length. In the 1950s, up to 19,000 spectators followed the games of the university's football team. In 1984 there was a complete redesign: Francis Field received a modern 400-meter running track made of plastic and the audience capacity was limited to 4,000. The playing field has been made of artificial turf since 2004 .

The stadium and adjacent gym are classified as a National Historic Landmark .

literature

• Karl Lennartz : The games of the III. 1904 Olympics in St. Louis . Page 79. Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89784-259-9 .

Web links

Commons : Francis Field  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Short portrait with photos