Breese Stevens Field

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Breese Stevens Field is a soccer field located in Madison, Wisconsin, northeast of the Wisconsin State Capitol. It is named in honor of Breese Stevens, former mayor of Madison and University of Wisconsin-Madison regent.

"Breese", as it is often referred to, is currently home to Edgewood College and the Princeton 56ers amateur soccer team. It has also hosted Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association's girls soccer tournaments in recent years.

The original grandstand structure, designed by the Madison architectural firm of Claude and Starck in the Mediterranean Revival style, was built from 1925 to 1926. It was formally dedicated on May 5, 1926.

The surrounding walls, which today encircle the playing field, are constructed of sandstone, said to be quarried from the former city quarry at Hoyt Park. The walls and concrete bleachers were built in 1934, and the wood-press box was built in 1939.

The field was once a major athletic complex and home to the minor league baseball team Madison Blues of the Triple-I League in the 1940s. It has also hosted football, softball, circuses, midget car racing, ice skating, track and field, Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps competitions, concerts, even boxing and wrestling events.

By the late 1960s Breese Stevens field had lost its status as the city's premier athletic complex when modern facilities, such as Mansfield Stadium began to appear in suburban Madison.

This complex is a Madison Landmark and was nominated by the Madison Trust in 1995.

Louis Claude, the principal architect of Breese Stevens Field, was famous for designing the Carnegie Library buildings around the country. He was born in Devil's Lake, Wisconsin. Although little known, he is one of Wisconsin's most famous historic figures in the field of architecture and design. The blueprints for Breese Stevens Field (grandstand) are located in the manuscript division of the Elmer Anderson library on the west bank campus of the University of Minnesota. For anyone with a connection to Breese Stevens Field they are fascinating documents to view. I grew up in Madison and once attended a youth baseball clinic there in the 1960's, so my familiarity with the field is as a baseball park. It is believed that Warren Spahn, the great left-handed pitcher for the Milwaukee Braves, played here as a member of the Evansville Bees of the Three-I League in the early 1940's when they opposed the Madison Blues.

Rex Hamann, the American Association Almanac www.americanassociationalmanac.com