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 West End Park
N 30° 05.598 W 093° 44.615
15R E 428349 N 3329356
A marker in front of a school in Orange, TX about the baseball park that previously occupied the property and its link to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Waymark Code: WMX3V5
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/22/2017
Views: 3
Marker Number: 18264
Marker Text:
West End Park, a baseball field with wooden grandstands, was an institution in Orange County for nearly 80 years. The park was originally constructed to draw a professional baseball team to the city for spring training. Orange was the center of Orange County in the 1920s and underwent a shipbuilding boom during World War I. As the lumber mills were beginning to run out of native county timber, H. J. Lutcher Stark, a graduate of the University of Texas, formed the Orange Athletic Association to attract a professional baseball team.
The St. Louis Cardinals took the field for their first practice on February 28, 1921. The practice was supposed to be private, but fans came to catch a glimpse of some of the biggest names in baseball and Hall of Fame legends, such as Branch Rickey, Rogers Hornsby, Connie Mack, and George “Specs” Toporcer. The first Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who is also in the Hall of Fame, visited the city and watched a game from the grandstands.
Orange’s local businesses benefited from the national attention brought on by the spring training camp and the Cardinals agreed to return for spring training in 1922. Though the Cardinals did not return to Orange the following year, West End Park continued to be used for many years by local high schools, youth and adult baseball teams. The West Orange-Cove Consolidated School District, which owns the property, removed the last remaining dugouts and flattened the field in 2009. Even though it is no longer in use, the memories of thousands of Orange locals who played on the same field as baseball legends remain.
(2015)
Marker is Property of the State of Texas
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Visit Instructions:
Please include a picture in your log. You and your GPS receiver do not need to be in the picture. We encourage additional information about your visit (comments about the surrounding area, how you ended up near the marker, etc.) in the log.
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