Small town West Texas football stadiums

5,611 Views | 25 Replies | Last: 11 days ago by merkman03
WestTexasAg
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AG
Who has the best? I nominate Spur, TX.

https://texasbob.com/stadium/stadium.php?id=779

GSPag`
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Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater is interesting.
CanyonAg77
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AG
Been to Spur. Was a beat-down of a 100 mile yellow dog school bus drive from my home town.

It is a cool little field, I like how they used the natural terrain to build the seats on. And as I recall, the "steps" or levels of the stands were 4-6 feet deep, so you had lots of room around you.

Side note: First game I attended at Spur, my brother was coming home from his fish year at A&M for the weekend, and my folks were driving to the game. I'm helping unload the band bus, and my brother steps in the back door to tell me our folks had been in a car wreck. They were basically uninjured, but a grain truck had turned left in front of them, and they scraped the whole side of the car across a concrete culvert, avoiding a direct head-on. Came pretty close to losing them.

I think someone else driving to the game stopped at the wreck, and my folks sent word with them to tell my brother. This was decades before cell phones.
CanyonAg77
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GSPag` said:

Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater is interesting.
From the link in the OP



Quote:

There is no better High School football stadium in the Texas than the Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater. The Mustang Bowl was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939 making it older than most stadiums currently in use but the community has maintained and modernize the facilities over the years in a way that makes it a modern venue for football. If you're ever around Sweetwater on a Friday night in the fall this is the place watch football. The students were excited in 1939 and they are excited today. Below is an article from the student newspaper announcing the approval of funding for the new stadium.

Cool back story
CanyonAg77
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AG
Kimbrough Stadium (now called Happy State Bank) is a bigger version of Spur, also built to take advantage of the natural terrain. Pretty cool to sit there on a late September night, and look across the small valley to the confluence of Tierra Blanca and Palo Duro Creeks, and the upper end of Palo Duro Canyon

jtp01
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AG
Comanche stadium in Stinnett is REALLY nice. We play them and that stadium is far and away the nicest one our team has played in.
WestTexasAg
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AG
CanyonAg77 said:

GSPag` said:

Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater is interesting.
From the link in the OP



Quote:

There is no better High School football stadium in the Texas than the Mustang Bowl in Sweetwater. The Mustang Bowl was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939 making it older than most stadiums currently in use but the community has maintained and modernize the facilities over the years in a way that makes it a modern venue for football. If you're ever around Sweetwater on a Friday night in the fall this is the place watch football. The students were excited in 1939 and they are excited today. Below is an article from the student newspaper announcing the approval of funding for the new stadium.

Cool back story
Good call on the Mustang Bowl! We played a game there when I was in high school.
CanyonAg77
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Amazing how much stuff was built by WPA and is still in use.
CanyonAg77
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AG
How about Memphis, Texas? Built by the WPA in 1937. When Highway 287 expanded, they just lopped a corner off.

Edit: looking again, I see no way there was a road between the RR and the stadium when built. Either the train tracks were moved closer, 287 used to go down the other side of the tracks, or 287 used to take a more western route, bypassing this area


Bluecat_Aggie94
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Every time I drive through Memphis I am curious about how they put the stadium right there. I'm quite certain footballs have ended up in the hiway on an errant thrown away pass or a shanked punt.
CanyonAg77
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AG
I looked at some maps on the Texas Escapes web site

http://www.texasescapes.com/

It appears to me that the road used to drop due south from the ghost town of Giles, then enter Memphis from the west. Perhaps when the stadium was built in the 1930s, there wasn't a highway between the tracks and the field at all.

Or as I said, maybe a narrow highway, and only a single RR track, not a double

aggiejohn
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CanyonAg77 said:

Kimbrough Stadium (now called Happy State Bank) is a bigger version of Spur, also built to take advantage of the natural terrain. Pretty cool to sit there on a late September night, and look across the small valley to the confluence of Tierra Blanca and Palo Duro Creeks, and the upper end of Palo Duro Canyon
my first ever varsity game was against Canyon Randall, and I got ear-holed on the first play (kick off return) and went horizontal.
I remember looking up thinking "this ain't JV any more!".
TequilaMockingbird
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Van Horn has a nice little facility. If they'd add more bleachers on the visitor's side they cold host some larger school playoff games between El Paso and Permian Basin schools.

Nixter
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aggiejohn said:

CanyonAg77 said:

Kimbrough Stadium (now called Happy State Bank) is a bigger version of Spur, also built to take advantage of the natural terrain. Pretty cool to sit there on a late September night, and look across the small valley to the confluence of Tierra Blanca and Palo Duro Creeks, and the upper end of Palo Duro Canyon
my first ever varsity game was against Canyon Randall, and I got ear-holed on the first play (kick off return) and went horizontal.
I remember looking up thinking "this ain't JV any more!".
Who let this South Plains riff-raff in here?

I sure would enjoy seeing you again one of these days, old friend!
Jack Boyett
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I don't know the history of it, but Childress has a stadium that looks WPA.
GSPag`
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Clarendon and Childress are both WPA stadiums. There rock fences are still impressive.
Lurch
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I did not know this or had forgotten.
WTAGGIE72
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CanyonAg77
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Lurch said:

I did not know this or had forgotten.
Probably that same pink* Cadillac that I nearly killed us both in when the grain truck rain the stop sign in front of us.


* Cadillac called the color "Desert Rose". Sort of a purplish-pink color. I called the car The Pink Hearse.
Lurch
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I know the intersection of which you speak!
Russell Bradleys Toupee
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"The Rock" would be better suited for out west, but it's only west of the Brazos.



McInnis80
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CanyonAg77 said:

Kimbrough Stadium (now called Happy State Bank) is a bigger version of Spur, also built to take advantage of the natural terrain. Pretty cool to sit there on a late September night, and look across the small valley to the confluence of Tierra Blanca and Palo Duro Creeks, and the upper end of Palo Duro Canyon


Sorry, that ain't Kimbrough Stadium, that's the Buffalo Bowl. That's where Mercury Morris, Duane Thomas, and Dory Funk, Jr. played.
CanyonAg77
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Quote:

Sorry, that ain't Kimbrough Stadium, that's the Buffalo Bowl.


Or am I missing an objection to the name Kimbrough?

Side note: Kimbrough was a brother to the Aggie John KImbrough, I believe.
CanyonAg77
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https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/20040791

Quote:

A Pair of Kimbroughs. John Kimbrough (left), the All-American from Texas A&M, met brother Frank (right), Hardin-Simmons coach, at Fort Worth Ex-students banquet Wednesday night. "You'd better quit this running around over the country and get back to your books or you'll be an ex-student yourself," advised the elder Kimbrough. He smiled when he said it. Published Fort Worth Star Telegram Morning Edition January 25, 1940.

bowhuntr
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Guthrie!
merkman03
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Me and my buddy were bored one day during Covid and ranked every 1A football stadium (6 man football). Some of our favorites from west texas districts were Spur and Van Horn (both mentioned previously).

Our favorite west texas stadiums from 1A-1 are Rankin and Menard. Other notables include Garden City, Borden Co. and Hermleigh.

Our favorites from 1A-2 are Jayton (previously mentioned), Sierra Blanca, Benjamin (state champions will do that to you), and Crowell.
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