From the archives: Last Emeralds game at Eugene Civic Stadium September 4, 2009
As Civic Park prepares to host its first public event in October 2019, we unearthed images by photographer Dan Morrison from the last Eugene Emeralds game at Civic Stadium more than a decade earlier.
EUGENE, Ore. - Eugene Civic Stadium hosted its first sporting event October 28, 1938.
In the annual Eugene-Corvallis High School football skirmish, a week after the structure was formally dedicated, the teams played to a 0-0 tie.
In what proved to be the stadium's final sporting event, the Eugene Emeralds played the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes on September 4, 2009.
The Ems led 3-0 early.
The Volcanoes erupted at the plate and came back to win, 5-3.
And the hand-operated scoreboard kept track of its last game ever.
Fire - and rebirth
Over the coming years, a group of citizens has worked to see the wooden structure - one of the last of its kind in the United States - reborn as a venue for sports.
The building was put on the National Register of Historic Place in October 2008, the 70th anniversary of its construction.
After repeated competitive processes that saw interest in the property from a developer working with Fred Meyers and the Eugene Family YMCA, the City of Eugene purchased the property with one condition: that a civic group buy and rehabilitate the property.
A group called the Eugene Civic Alliance - including the Friends of Civic and Kidsports - pulled together the money won the right to buy the property from the City.
The vision: a Kidsports field house - and the old wooden grandstands packed again with fans of soccer and other sports.
The Alliance purchased the property in April 2015 for $4.5 million.
Then the Works Progress Administration project - one of two structures of its kind left in the United States as of 2008 - went up in flames June 29, 2015, amidst record heat and drought. Investigators later determined a group of preteen boys playing with fire set the wooden stadium ablaze.
The Civic Alliance elected to "Play On!" and redevelop the property as Civic Park, an indoor/outdoor multi-sport venue.
Civic Park will host its first public event in October 2019, more than 10 years.
