Huntingdon Grounds I

Brick Walls

When Phillies owners Al Reach and John Rogers built a new park in North Philadelphia in 1887, they spent $101,000 and made a choice no ballpark in the country had made before. The exterior walls went up entirely of brick. Every other park was still wood. The Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society identifies it as the first ballpark with outside walls built entirely of brick, and the press at the time praised the result as state of the art.

The park sat on a square block with the right field line running parallel to Huntingdon Street. It held 12,500 people: 5,000 in a pavilion behind home plate and 7,500 in grandstands extending down the left and right field lines. The pavilion seating was itself a first — the Historical Society notes that no ballpark had offered it for customers before.

Two innovations on one piece of ground, and the park was considered state of the art when it opened.

August 6, 1894

The building stood from 1887 through the summer of 1894. On August 6 of that year, virtually the entire ballpark burned to the ground. Only part of the exterior outfield wall survived — a section of the brick that had set the park apart from every other park in the country. That remnant was later incorporated into the replacement stadium built on the same site, dedicated in 1895. That second park is a different building, with a different story.

For the rest of the 1894 season, fans were seated in temporary stands. That was the last year of Huntingdon Grounds I.

Reporting: Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society, RetroSeasons.com. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.