Gator Bowl Stadium

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Gator Bowl Stadium, in Jacksonville, Florida, first opened as Fairfield Stadium in 1927. Florida Governor John W. Martin addressed the crowd at the opening ceremony. He called it "the best place in Florida to watch a football game!" The stadium's original purpose was modest: to provide a home ground for three of Jacksonville's new high schools, Lee, Jackson, and Landon. Its initial seating held 7,600 people. On the 1st of January 1946, all of that changed. The stadium hosted the inaugural Gator Bowl post-season college football game, drawing national attention to a venue that had been built for teenagers. What followed was six decades of expansion, college rivalries, and professional sports experiments. One extraordinary night would see a hurricane and a stand against racial segregation arrive together in Jacksonville. By 1994, nearly all of it had been razed to prepare for a new chapter in Jacksonville's sports history.

  1

• 2. A Stadium Grows

  ›

  In 1948, the stadium was expanded to a capacity of 16,000 seats. That same year, the structure was renamed the Gator Bowl, the name it would carry for the rest of its life. Before the 1949 Gator Bowl game, another round of construction brought total capacity to 36,058 seats, a figure that held steady until 1957. With that scale came new prestige. The 1950 Senior Bowl, the first game in that bowl's history, was staged at the Gator Bowl. The Florida-Georgia game, the annual rivalry between the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, had been a fixture at the stadium since 1933. That rivalry brought a reliable autumn crowd year after year. By the late 1960s, professional football leagues were taking notice of the Gator Bowl's capacity and its established reputation.

  12

• 3. Beyond College Football

  ›

  The Gator Bowl hosted the American Football League All-Star Game in back-to-back years, 1968 and 1969. Both editions brought professional players from around the country to Jacksonville. The World Football League arrived in 1974, when the Jacksonville Sharks set up home at the Gator Bowl. The Sharks were followed in 1975 by the Jacksonville Express, who played out their season at the same venue. Soccer then entered the picture: the Jacksonville Tea Men, competing in the North American Soccer League, called the Gator Bowl home from 1981 to 1984. The United States Football League's Jacksonville Bulls played there in 1984 and 1985. By 1993, both the Florida-Georgia game and the post-season Gator Bowl game had played their final editions at the stadium. Years before those final editions, the Gator Bowl had witnessed an evening that combined civil rights history with the raw aftermath of a hurricane.

  1

• 4. One Night in September

  ›

  On the 11th of September 1964, the Beatles arrived at the Gator Bowl for a concert during their first American tour. Before the show, the band learned that the audience was to be racially segregated, with Black fans given degraded seating. They refused to perform under those conditions. Paul McCartney went on record with the group's position, expressing their disapproval of the arrangement and their lack of familiarity with American segregation practices. John Lennon stated his view plainly: "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now. I'd sooner lose our appearance money." City officials relented, and the concert went ahead before an integrated crowd. The previous day, Hurricane Dora had struck St. Augustine and Jacksonville, leaving most of the city without power for several days. Despite the disruption, 23,000 fans attended the show. Tickets were priced at $4 and $5. Winds of 45 miles per hour were still blowing during the performance. Ringo Starr's drumkit was nailed to the stage to prevent it from moving. The Jacksonville Jaguars, who would begin their inaugural NFL season in 1995, would require the ground beneath the Gator Bowl to serve a new purpose.

  34

• 5. Demolition and Rebirth

  ›

  The reconstructed facility was named Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, known today as EverBank Stadium. The rebuild preserved almost none of the original construction. Two components survived: the west upper deck, added to the stadium in 1982, and the ramping system. While construction continued, the Florida-Georgia game moved temporarily to the two universities' home grounds. Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville hosted it in 1994. Georgia's Sanford Stadium hosted it the following year. The 1994 Gator Bowl post-season game was also held in Gainesville that year. Both events returned to Jacksonville the following season and have continued under the EverBank Stadium roof ever since.

  1