Neil Park

Before it became a park of fences and faded paint, the venue was a landmark of the 20th century. It opened in 1900, a year that saw the birth of many sporting institutions, but the structure that rose there would soon outlast most of them. The reconstruction in 1905 was the key moment, when builders chose concrete and steel for the first time in the country for such a purpose. The pitch was turned from the southeast corner to the southwest, a change that altered the geometry of every game played there afterwards.

The crowds responded to the modernisation. A record 21,000 spectators paid to watch a single minor league match, a figure that stood for a time at any ground of its kind. The Columbus Senators called it home for years, but the intensity of the local competition eventually crowded them out. When Red Bird Stadium opened in the middle of the 1932 season, the old venue was left abandoned before the summer was over. It stood until 1946, when the final demolition cleared the site.

Two versions of the same ground existed in different eras, distinguished only by historians. The name remained constant.