Houck Field: A stadium's history and impact on a community

In May of 1929, Houck Field was just a drawing.

Audrey Hepburn was born that month. Al Capone was imprisoned. Prohibition was a thing. In just a few months, the “Great Crash” on Wall Street, later named Black Tuesday, would trigger the Great Depression.

Louis Houck - railroad builder, historian, Normal School regent (Southeast Missourian archive)

But the Teachers College Board of Regents didn’t know what would become of the people and institutions that were to be born or crash. The regents were determined to build what was, at the time, one of the best athletic facilities in the Midwest. The regents hired architects to make sketches and official plans. It wouldn’t be an easy build. The site of Houck Field, as it is known today, was the site of an abandoned quarry, a piece of land purchased in 1925 for $11,000 and described as “rat-infested” and water-filled”. More stone had to be blasted out of the area to build the Field, stone that would be used to build the approaches to the Cape Girardeau Bridge.

Houck Field�s stands were scarcely large enough to hold a crowd of more than 6,000 for Saturday, Nov. 18, 1961�s afternoon Homecoming contest with Murray (Kentucky) State. With 38 bands as guests, and occupying a special bleacher section, the demand for space in the stands was overwhelming. This is a view from east to west down the stadium. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

Since those 1929 drawings, Houck Field and Houck Field House have served the role as the home of thousands of athletic events. The building is more than a place where athletes perform and fans cheer. It is the oldest sporting venue in the Southeast Missouri region.

The National Football League was 10 years old when those drawings were made. College football had seen a spike in popularity through the Roaring ’20s, following a rise in games broadcast over the radio waves. Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne was a national icon. There were no televised games. No Heisman Trophy. Helmets were used by players, but they were not yet required. Facemasks weren’t a part of the helmet, and shoulder pads and chinstraps wouldn’t be added for another decade. But athletes loved to play and fans loved to watch the boys run with the pigskin. Before Houck, the university and the local high school played at Fairground Park.

Houck Field was built with railcar loads of steel and 2,250 barrels of concrete when football was still a toddler. Drawing upon flavor from the old industrial days, the Houck facility was described in archived newspaper articles as an “athletic plant.”

An article from September of 1930 announced the Oct. 3 dedication of Houck Field, built for $150,000, as one of the top athletic plants in “this section of the country. Indeed, those who have inspected it,” the article states, “have decided it is the most complete plant in Missouri, not excepting the state university.”

The plant would seat 7,000 people. And the project included Houck Field House as well, constructed from cement blocks. It included a basketball court, training quarters, shower and dressing rooms and offices. Much was made of Houck Field’s lights, described as equal “to that of any field in the Middle West.”

Bands perform before a large crowd at Civic Sunday at Houck Field, undated. (Southeast Missourian archive)

The words first used to describe the Teacher’s College Indians football team was referred to as the “gridders”, who played SIU in the first game at the new Field. Max Neville caught the first kickoff. SIU won the game 12-6. Six thousand fans watched the game.

“That day was something,” Neville said in an article from 2000. “We had a big crowd for the new Field. For that time, it (Houck) was really something, a concrete Field like that. I imagine that was probably the best Field of any college in Missouri at the time.” Neville ended up serving in World War II, where he bumped into actors Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart and Louis Rainer.

The State College Indians 1957 football candidates are shown here as they made their first appearance at Houck Field on Monday, Aug. 26, 1957, under head coach Kenneth Knox and his two assistants, Bogey Harrison and James Hamby. There were 54 candidates on hand with several missing because of late arrival. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

The local university took on the Haskell Institute Indian Reserves on Oct. 17,1930, for the first football game played under lights in Southeast Missouri. Teacher’s College won the game 12-6, which was described as a trouncing. That team was quarterbacked by Herbert Wickham. The QB later became a chief of police in Cape Girardeau, and would go on to serve in World War II. Houck Field was a drawing in May of 1929. It hosted its first game just 18 months later, the grips of the Great Depression settling over the nation.

It was announced that the Central High Tigers would use the field as well. On Thanksgiving Day in 1930, the Central-Jackson game drew the largest crowd to date, in a game the Tigers beat Jackson 6-0.

Since then, Houck, which has undergone many improvements over the years, has hosted hundreds of football games, played by university and high school squads, but also more recently women’s soccer teams.

The entrance to Houck Stadium. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

In 1979, Southeast Missouri State set an attendance record of 10,000 against Murray State, though the Beach Boys drew 11,015 people to the Field following a football game in 1999.

Field turf was installed in 2000.

Central High played at Houck for decades, but those games were played on Thursday nights, which was not ideal for high school students. The Tigers began playing in Central’s new facilities in 2003.

In 2011, an article in the Southeast Missourian described the facility as outdated, inadequate and falling apart. A new video scoreboard and upgraded lighting was added that year.

In 2022, work began on Field upgrades. The upgrade stripped out some of the old to remodel the old “plant” into a “new transformational multiuse complex.”

The improvements included a new grandstand, seating, concession stands and restrooms and improved disability access. The improvements, considered Phase 1 of an overall, cost roughly $16 million, paid for by city, university and state funds. Future plans call for additional phases to build an educational facility on the far side of the Field that would house several athletics or sports-related and medical classes, labs and academic programs. Eventually the university would like to build a new indoor training facility as well.

These big ideas and plans and investments all stem from a drawing made more than 90 years ago, an idea to build a football field on a rat-infested quarry property during the beginnings of the Great Depression.