![]() ![]() Funding for the stadium project also came from a Heritage Trust Fund Grant from the Kansas State Historical Society and private contributions. This included the renovation, rehabilitation and additions to Fischer Field Stadium. In 2004, the City of Newton, Newton Recreation Commission and Newton USD 373 committed a total of 1.8 mills of property taxes to upgrade athletic facilities citywide. Another structure in the park listed on the state and national registers is the Mennonite Settler statue, sculpted in 1942 by artist Max Nixon.įischer Field Stadium during renovations in 2005 The stadium, named Curtis Fischer Field in 1992, was placed on the Kansas Register of Historic Places in August 2003 and on the National Register of Historic Places in December 2003. The stadium has been the home of Newton High School football and until 2005, the home of Bethel College football, as well as community events. It is one of the few remaining remnants of the City's development in the 1930s. Fischer Field is a significant historic structure in Newton because of its ties to the New Deal programs and the rarity of a stadium funded by those programs. More than 1,400 athletic fields and 1,800 swimming pools were constructed with New Deal funds, but stadiums were rare. In 1935, the City of Newton was granted funds by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program for recovery from the Great Depression, to build a football stadium in Athletic Park. Newtonians swam in Sand Creek at Athletic Park until the public swimming pool was built in the park in 1934. A zoo with several animals and a working small-scale railroad entertained a generation of children in the 1960s. Since 1909, Athletic Park has served many functions, including hosting an automobile tourist camp in the early days of automobile travel, quoted in a Chamber of Commerce pamphlet in the mid-1920s to be "one of the most comfortable and commodious tourist camps in Kansas." The race track in the park was used for horse, motorcycle, and automobile racing the park also contained ball fields, playgrounds, and picnic shelters. This purchase included most of the land that is now Athletic Park. ![]() Axtell sold the land to the City of Newton for $5,000, financed though a 10-year bond issue. Axtell's Newton Driving and Athletic Association built what became known as "one of the fastest half-mile race tracks in the state" upon land he owned. John Axtell was an entrepreneur interested in livestock, horses, and horse racing. Axtell in medical practice at the Axtell Hospital, eventually establishing the Axtell Clinic.Īs well as contributing greatly to medicine in the state, Dr. She graduated in 1895, becoming one of the first female physicians in the nation. His wife, Lucena Chase Axtell, with two young daughters in tow, then attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Kansas City. Axtell established the first hospital in Newton. After the two-year course there and studies at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1883. He served as the principal of one of the city schools for two years, saving money to enter the University of Michigan Medical School. Axtell, owner of the land upon which Athletic Park sits, came to Newton in 1878. The stadium is listed on both the Kansas Register and National Register of Historic Places. The stadium is used for athletic events - including high school football and soccer (including the state's 8-man football championship), competitive leagues, and semi-pro football - concerts, Newton High School graduation and a variety of community events and festivals. ![]()
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