City Stadium is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

stadium in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on the north side of the Green Bay East High School property. It was the home of the Green Bay Packers of the NFL from

1925 Events January * January 1 ** The Syrian Federation is officially dissolved, the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus having been replaced by the State of Syria. * January 3 – Benito Mussolini makes a pivotal speech in the Itali ...

through 1956. Renovated and downsized, City Stadium remains the home of East High. Prior to 1925, the Packers played home games at nearby Hagemeister Park (the site of East High School itself) and Bellevue Park.

History

The horseshoe-shaped stadium was made of wood and originally did not have any toilet facilities. It stood behind East High School and next to the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

. The Packers used the school for locker room facilities, but visiting teams often dressed at their hotel (usually the Hotel Northland) before the game rather than use the lockers at East High. The stadium originally seated 6,000 and its capacity was gradually expanded to 25,000. The Packers compiled a record of 88-41-7 () at City Stadium, including NFL championship seasons in

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will b ...

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

, 1939, and

1944 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in Nor ...

. However, City Stadium never hosted an NFL Championship Game. Of the four championship games the Packers played in during the years of City Stadium, the team hosted only one, the 1939 title game, which was played in Milwaukee instead. Although City Stadium was the Packers' official home field, in 1933—during the worst of the Great Depression—they began to play part of their home schedule in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

. After holding one contest at

Borchert Field Borchert Field was a baseball park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The home field for several professional baseball clubs from 1888 through 1952, it became obsolete after the construction of County Stadium in 1953 and was demolished la ...

in 1933, the Packers played two or three home games each year in Milwaukee, at

State Fair Park State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

in West Allis from

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maxi ...

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

and at

Marquette Stadium Marquette Stadium was an outdoor athletic stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the home field of the Golden Avalanche of Marquette University, its intercollegiate football team. Located in the Merrill Park neighborhood west of the university, the ...

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

. The games were moved to County Stadium after it opened in 1953. The practice continued through 1994, after which they were again based solely in Green Bay. City Stadium (NBY 2272)

While its playing surface was consistently praised, by the 1950s the stadium was seen as too small and inadequate, even after expansion, which was limited by both natural and man-made factors, including both East High to the south and the East River on its north and east edges. The leaders of the NFL, including George Halas, gave the Packer board an ultimatum—build a new stadium or move to Milwaukee full-time. The residents of Green Bay responded by approving (70.3%) a bond issue in April 1956 to build a new City Stadium, which opened the following year, as "old" City Stadium became a high school field. The new stadium was renamed

Lambeau Field Lambeau Field is an outdoor athletic stadium in the north central United States, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The home field of the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL), it opened in 1957 as City Stadium, replacing ...

in August 1965, after the death of team founder Curly Lambeau, and has become one of the most revered venues in all of American sports.

After the Packers

In recent years, ornamental fencing and monuments to the history of the field have been erected. Before the 2008 renovations, it was often referred to as East Stadium or Old City Stadium. The 100th Green Bay East–West football game was played at City Stadium in 2005, with approximately 8,000 people attending the historic event. As an observance of the 50th anniversary of the opening of Lambeau Field, the Packers held practice at City Stadium on July 31, 2007. In the summer of 2008, City Stadium was renovated with a new press box, new bleachers on the home side of the field, and two new football goal posts. Much of the structure had dated to the 1960s and become unsafe. The field received artificial turf in 2017. The only remaining part of the original venue is the equipment shed at the northwest corner of the facility. In addition to football, the field has hosted soccer matches. Until 2004, the Green Bay East and Green Bay Preble soccer programs shared the field for their home games.

History

After the Packers

References

Further reading