League Park

League Park was the site of the first professional organized league baseball game, played on May 4, 1871, when the Fort Wayne Kekiongas defeated the Cleveland Forest Citys 2-0. A wooden structure was built in 1883 and rebuilt numerous times over the following decades. In 1908, Claude Varnell, whose Fort Wayne Billikins was a minor league team associated with the St. Louis Cardinals, rebuilt the park, including the then unique idea of a grass infield. Located on the east side of Headwaters Park, the field was badly damaged in the great flood of 1913, but it was restored and went on to host numerous Fort Wayne semi-pro teams such as the Lincoln Lifers and the Kips, as well as the Central League's Chiefs. Fort Wayne also played one of the earliest nighttime baseball games here on June 3, 1883, using some of Thomas Edison's early incandescent lights; it was perhaps the second time a game was attempted under lights and was among the first games ever played under lights by a professional team, with illumination provided by the Jenny Electric Light Company of Fort Wayne through seventeen powerful arc lights designed for outdoor lighting. Fire destroyed the stadium in 1930, a new somewhat smaller grandstand replaced the old ball park, and by 1939 all the park buildings had been razed.

Fort Wayne, Indiana · United States