{"id":44,"date":"2015-01-21T17:22:16","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T22:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/?p=44"},"modified":"2018-01-09T11:41:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T16:41:05","slug":"from-turnpike-stadium-to-rangers-ballpark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/2015\/01\/21\/from-turnpike-stadium-to-rangers-ballpark\/","title":{"rendered":"From Turnpike Stadium to Rangers Ballpark"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fans<\/a>

Texas Rangers Game. Lester Strother Collection (AR0327), University of North Texas Special Collections<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

The Texas Rangers will be starting their 2015 Spring Training Season coming up on March 4th<\/sup>, a little over a month before the their 2015 Season opener game against the Houston Astros on April 10th<\/sup>. This will be the Rangers 43rd<\/sup> season playing in Arlington, the first being in the Arlington Stadium on April 21, 1972 against the Angels, wining 7-6.\u00a0 This game was the first Major League game to be played in the Arlington Stadium and in North Texas.\u00a0 This was the only other Major League Baseball stadium apart from Colt Stadium, which housed the Houston Colt .45s temporarily from 1962-1964; and the Astrodome, where in 1965, the team moved to and was renamed as the Houston Astros.<\/p>\r\n

Before the Arlington Stadium was home to the Texas Rangers, the stadium was home to the minor league team, Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs, and the stadium itself was called Turnpike Stadium.\u00a0 Construction on Turnpike Stadium began in September of 1964 and held its first game in 1965. Even though it originally seated only 10,000, it was built so that the seating could be expanded up to 50,000 (it also was originally built to attract a Major League team).\u00a0 The Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs played in the Turnpike Stadium for 7 years, until in 1972 when a new franchise moved in from Washington, DC. The Washington Senators majority was purchased by Robert E. Short in December of 1968, and finally moved to Arlington in 1971.<\/p>\r\n

With the coming of Major League Baseball to the Turnpike Stadium, it was enlarged from 20,000 seats (first seat enlargement occurred in October 1970) to seat a little over 35,500, and was also renamed as Arlington Stadium. After the Texas Rangers played in the Arlington Stadium for a little over four years, the City of Arlington and the Texas Rangers agreed on a plan in December of 1976 to enlarge the stadium to seat 42, 000, and be renovated over the next two years.\u00a0 They continued to play in the Arlington Stadium throughout the next 17 years, during which time the Rangers purchased the Stadium from the City of Arlington, and with the City announced plans to build a new ballpark and complex adjacent to the old stadium. The Arlington Stadium saw its final game on October 3, 1993 with over 41,000 attending.\u00a0 The 1994 season opened in \u201cThe Ballpark in Arlington\u201d stadium (Ameriquest Field), which much of us know today, on April 1st <\/sup>(in 2007 it was renamed as Rangers Ballpark).<\/p>\r\n

When the original Stadium was built in 1964, the only other attractions in the vicinity was Six Flags over Texas (1961-present), the Seven Seas (1972-1976), the Globe Life Park (1994), and finally the AT&T Stadium in 2009.\u00a0 Other than that the area surrounding didn\u2019t see much development in these 43 years and was mostly surrounded by parking lots, open fields, and highways. The building of AT&T Stadium did however provide over thousands of jobs, and expanded the tax revenue.\u00a0 Today, there are a plethora of hotels, restaurants, shopping and office spaces, and nearby residential communities. Anywhere there are residential communities, there is a need for retail stores and so on.\u00a0 The development around the Rangers Ballpark may have not been growing as rapidly as the City of Arlington had originally hoped, but in recent years the growth has made up for that slack.<\/p>\r\n

-by Jaime Janda<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Rangers will be starting their 2015 Spring Training Season coming up on March 4th, a little over a month before the their 2015 Season opener game against the Houston Astros on April 10th. This will be the Rangers 43rd season playing in Arlington, the first being in the Arlington Stadium on April 21,… Read more »<\/a>","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,18,14,15,13,17],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arlington","tag-ballpark","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-rangers","tag-texas-rangers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p60UnY-I","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":367,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/2015\/10\/14\/remembering-texas-stadium\/","url_meta":{"origin":44,"position":0},"title":"Remembering Texas Stadium","author":"Alexandra","date":"October 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Football is fun. It\u2019s a moneymaker, too. That\u2019s one reason Irving decided to construct Texas Stadium, after the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Clint Murchison Jr., expressed interest in moving the team out of the Cotton Bowl. Through revenue bonds, Irving financed the stadium, and it opened in 1971 as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Dallas Cowboys\"","block_context":{"text":"Dallas Cowboys","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/tag\/dallas-cowboys\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A view of the field and open roof at Texas Stadium in Irving, 1972. From the Lester Strother Texas Metro Collection. 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The special collections department of UNT Libraries holds fascinating evidence of this growth in the form of original documents, photographs and collections of personal papers, however many\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/2014\/05\/30\/planning-and-development-of-the-dallas-fort-worth-regional-airport\/","url_meta":{"origin":44,"position":2},"title":"Planning and Development of the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport","author":"Morgan","date":"May 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"With summer vacation season quickly approaching, many of us will soon be jetting off to exotic-and perhaps not so exotic-locales far and near which means embarking on an odyssey through DFW International Airport. As you\u2019re navigating through the perils of parking, the joys of security, and the pageantry of sitting\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Planning and Development Cover logo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/04\/Planning-and-Development-Cover-logo-300x254.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":393,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/2015\/10\/07\/the-cotton-bowl-the-house-that-doak-built\/","url_meta":{"origin":44,"position":3},"title":"The Cotton Bowl, The House that Doak Built","author":"Alexandra","date":"October 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"In the years following World War II, Doak Walker (a.k.a. \u201cThe Doaker\u201d) was the college football favorite. A true All-American, Doak led the SMU Mustangs in academics, athletics, and leadership, leaving behind a solid legacy for all Mustangs to come. He entered Southern Methodist University as a Freshman in 1945\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Cotton Bowl\"","block_context":{"text":"Cotton Bowl","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/tag\/cotton-bowl\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Aerial photograph of the Cotton Bowl stadium in Fair Park. From the Lester Strother Texas Metro Collection. 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Whereas Americans in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries often spoke German, Dutch, Italian, or French in addition to English, nowadays if someone is bilingual, it usually means that they speak English and Spanish. When legislators\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bilingual education\"","block_context":{"text":"bilingual education","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/tag\/bilingual-education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Bilingual Education Endorsement, The University of Texas at Arlington, UNTA_AR0177-004-002","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/12\/UNTA_AR0177-004-002_01-606x987.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/12\/UNTA_AR0177-004-002_01-606x987.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/12\/UNTA_AR0177-004-002_01-606x987.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":360,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/2015\/09\/30\/how-cool-is-the-state-fair-of-texas\/","url_meta":{"origin":44,"position":5},"title":"How Cool is the State Fair of Texas?","author":"Alexandra","date":"September 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 The 2015 State Fair of Texas has been up and running for a full 6\u00a0days now, and hopes are high to beat\u00a0the record-breaking numbers it saw last year. A welcome reprieve from the hot lines at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, families are excited for the cool weather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Big Tex\"","block_context":{"text":"Big Tex","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/tag\/big-tex\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"An aerial view of the State Fair of Texas","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/09\/UNTA_AR0327-052-002_01-740x601.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/09\/UNTA_AR0327-052-002_01-740x601.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/09\/UNTA_AR0327-052-002_01-740x601.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2015\/09\/UNTA_AR0327-052-002_01-740x601.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.unt.edu\/southwest-metroplex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}