Farrington Field: A Historic Football Stadium in Fort Worth

Farrington Field is a football stadium and athletics facility located directly across from Casa Mañana near the intersection of Lancaster Avenue and University Drive in Fort Worth. The idea for the facility originated with the longtime athletic director of the Fort Worth public school system, Evan Stanley Farrington, who became the principal advocate for a large citywide facility for high school students. On November 8, 1937, the Fort Worth Board of Education approved construction of the public high school stadium for $244,000 with federal assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). On November 14 Farrington passed away suddenly, and on January 19, 1938, the school board voted to name the new field after the late athletic director. The start of construction was delayed by the WPA’s request for additional specifications, especially regarding safety features. On March 8, 1938, Farrington’s son Stanley Farrington broke ground on the stadium. Plagued by numerous setbacks, including the walkout of sixty skilled workers over long working hours, construction on the project proceeded more slowly than expected. In May 1939 further federal appropriations for landscaping were approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Designed by architects Arthur George King and Everett Lee Frazior, Sr., under the guidance of Preston M. Geren, Sr., this state-of-the-art facility had advanced overhead lighting, seventy-foot columns adorning the west entrance, another decorative entrance on the north side, and a ninety-foot press box on the top of the west stands. Evaline Sellors designed the two large relief figures at the entrance in an art deco style, which was popular among WPA artists at the time.

Amarillo High School defeated Fort Worth’s Paschal High School 31–13 in the first game played at the stadium on September 15, 1939. Official dedication of the facility was delayed until November 3. The stadium, whose price had ballooned to $400,000, was dedicated by Karl E. Wallace, district director of the WPA, in an elaborate ceremony which an estimated 10,000 people attended before the Arlington Heights and Riverside high school football teams played each other. Prominent newspaperman, businessman, and civic booster Amon G. Carter gave a speech before the game in which he said that “there was nothing in the city more outstanding... than the stadium.” In 1953, due to the monetary success of Farrington Field, the Public Schools Gymnasium, now Jack A. Billingsley Field House, was built near Farrington Field.

In addition to hosting high school football games, the stadium also was the home to the Texas Wesleyan College Rams football team, which played there from 1939 until the team disbanded in 1941 due to World War II. In 2017, after a long hiatus, the football team was restarted and played their home games at Farrington Field. In the 1960s their basketball team played home games at the nearby field house. The stadium also hosted various other track and field events such as the Southwestern Exposition Track and Field Meet.

Three professional football games were also played at the stadium during the early 1960s. These games were the brainchild of Fort Worth businessman Tommy Mercer. In 1961 Mercer rented Farrington Field for $4,500 and paid another $25,000 to bankroll an exhibition game—the first professional football game played in Fort Worth—between two American Football League (AFL) teams, the Dallas Texans and the Denver Broncos. Nearly 22,000 fans packed into Farrington Field to see the Texans defeat the Broncos 29–27. The next year about 18,000 people attended a second Mercer-sponsored exhibition game, which prompted Mercer to attempt to secure an AFL franchise in Fort Worth. In 1964 another exhibition game in Fort Worth occurred between the Kansas City Chiefs (the former Dallas Texans franchise), led by future Super Bowl champion and MVP Len Dawson, and the Denver Broncos. The game ended in a 14–10 win for the Chiefs.

Numerous notable events in Fort Worth history have transpired on the stadium’s grounds. On June 16, 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur addressed a crowd of around 7,500 people at Farrington Field as part of his Texas speaking tour following his firing by President Harry Truman over public disagreements surrounding the escalation of the Korean War. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in nearby Dallas on November 22, 1963, Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce president Raymond Buck helped organize a non-denominational convocation where Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious leaders of the city gave speeches. On November 25, around 5,000 people attended the memorial service for Kennedy at Farrington Field.

In the early 1980s the Fort Worth Cultural District grew up around Farrington Field. In 1985 the Dallas-based Trammel Crow Company, envisioning future hotel and retail construction on the site of the stadium, proposed a deal involving the company building a new stadium for the Fort Worth ISD at another location. While members of the city council attempted to work with the company to strike a deal for the property, a complicated deed agreement insisted that Farrington Field would revert to the city from the school district if the facilities were used for a purpose besides education, meaning that proceeds from the sale would go to the city rather than the school district. Because of this, alongside backlash from many residents, the deal fell through, and Farrington Field remained intact.

In 2019 controversy emerged again as the Fort Worth ISD planned to sell the property in order to redevelop the site into a mixed-use technology and business center. To save Farrington Field, preservationists and concerned residents rallied around Historic Fort Worth, Inc.’s bid to save the stadium by securing its designation in the National Register of Historic Places. On February 2, 2022, the site was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places, though this designation does not fully protect the stadium from potential destruction. As of March 2022 local officials and residents continued to debate the future of Farrington Field as concerned supporters of the facility pushed for the preservation and modernization of the football stadium.