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The Watertown Stadium will host its last regular season game on Thursday, Oct 24. (Photo by Brandon Heim, Watertown Current)
For the first time in program history, the Watertown High School varsity football team will play on-campus starting next year. This means that the Arrow football program will be leaving Watertown Stadium—its home for over 80 years—and the space on Kemp Avenue it has played for over a century.
When Watertown High School football began in 1906, the high school was located on the “school block” uptown, and practices and games were held at city parks. This changed in 1919, when the Watertown School Board purchased a plot of land on the southwest corner of West Kemp Avenue and 14th Street.
Originally, this facility was known as the West Watertown Athletic Complex, however Watertown residents quickly took to calling it Fletcher Field. This has been the name of a previous site near the Big Sioux River which proved to be unsuitable due to spring flooding and generally swampy conditions. The first game at ‘new’ Fletcher Field was played on October 9, 1920, and saw Watertown shut out Lake Preston 63-0.
In 1924, Fletcher Field hosted the first homecoming game in Watertown; two years later, the football team would play there under their name, the Arrows.
Homecoming 2024 was the last celebrated at Watertown Stadium (Photo by Brandon Heim, Watertown Current)
Over time, the School District annexed adjacent land into the Fletcher Field site, eventually owning five city blocks. The current Stadium began as a planned band shell to be located west of Fletcher Field.
But Superintendent D.D. Miller had other plans.
In August of 1940, the school board appropriated $20,000 to construct a facility described as “second to none.” Plans were then submitted to the Works Progress Administration (a governmental body created from the depression-era New Deal), which approved the project in November 1940. The WPA financed just over $41,000 on the project and work began in December. Built in an art-deco style, the project was designed by the Sioux Falls-based architectural firm Perkins and McWayne. Construction was supervised by WPA engineer A.E. Meehan.
The facility was ready for use by the fall of 1941. On Sept 12 of that year, the Arrows opened the stadium by soundly defeating the Madison Bulldogs 27-0. About 2,300 fans watched this victory, the highest attendance to that point in program history. Fans watched that first game without concessions or toilets, as that area was still being completed.
After the completion of the new stadium, Fletcher Field was dismantled and its grandstands removed.
In addition to football, the stadium was built to also accommodate baseball and track. The combination of baseball and football playing fields was a groundbreaking idea and was considered a point of pride. Over the years, it has been the home field for minor league baseball teams: from 1954-1962, the Watertown Lake Sox of the Basin League of Collegiate Summer Baseball played here and the Watertown Expos, an affiliate of the Montreal Expos, played in the early 1970’s.
Baseball is expected to continue at the stadium for a few more years until a permanent home is established.
In addition to athletics, the Stadium has served has the community’s outdoor gathering point. For many years, the Fraternal Order of Police hosted a 4th of July fireworks display here. Numerous concerts have been held here. The Parks and Recreation Department has also used the space in the past for outdoor programming. In July 2000, the building was put on the National Register of Historic Places.
Since 2004, the Stadium has also been the home of the Panthers of Great Plains Lutheran High School in Watertown.
Head Coach Aaron Schleusener remarked “We are thankful to have the partnership with the city of Watertown and Watertown athletics to have been able to call Watertown Stadium our home for the last 21 years. In my nine years at GPL as the head football coach the field is always one of the best fields we play on as far as field conditions go. We’ve made many memories at the stadium, some good and maybe some not as good, but it will always be a part of GPL and GPL history.”
Athletic Director Matt Bauer added “We are grateful to have had the opportunity to play our home football games at historic Watertown Stadium the past 20+ years. Without a home football field of our own, being able to rent Watertown Stadium has been a blessing.”
The dedication plaque of the Watertown Municipal Stadium (Photo by Brandon Heim, Watertown Current)
Chris Jacobson has perhaps a stronger connection to the Stadium than most. Before he coached here for 38 years, he grew up just north of the stadium on 15th Street, next the open lot north of Kemp Avenue. He remembered all the cars gathered there on Friday nights. Later, as he coached the Arrows, his mother really could be called the Arrows’ “team mom.” Dorothy Ries Jacobson could often be found walking her dog during practices and waving to coaches and players. The Stadium, Coach Jacobson said, “became part of who we were, who I was.” It was, he said, “a great place to ‘work,’ if that’s what you want to call it.”
The Stadium, though not on campus, has been the center of Arrow Pride for generations. Relationships have been built here. Bonds strengthened.
Cohorts of the Arrow Marching band have entertained the masses at half-time.
Here, a large contingent of die-hard fans led by Casey Weber was banned from overnight camping during an attempted 24-hour tailgate in 2007.
In times gone by, students could be found at Whiz’s Pizza after games.
It was here that as a member of the Chain Gang, Matt Kranz got a sideline view to watch his sons play a game he never was able to.
Here, the school song—an original composition—was first performed in 1952.
It was here that Marv Sherrill took a bite out of Virg Polak’s licorice.
At Homecoming in 1977, it was this very field that was nearly set on fire in an effort to dry it out.
In the rafters under the stadium could be found hanging Coach Greg Struwe’s motorcycle.
From here, the 1996 and 2001 State Champion teams earned their tickets to the Dome.
And with the stadium as their home, the Arrows have amassed a record of 456-330-10.
Although it was built as state-of-the-art facility, the Watertown Stadium has always been more than grass and the 10,000 sacks of concrete it took to construct.
It has been a place of memories; of triumphs and heartbreaks. Over a century of Purple and Gold blood, sweat and tears have been poured out on that site. That concrete has been hallowed by over 80 years of Arrow fandom. The Stadium has truly lived up to the first words used to describe it, and those words now close its history. Our Stadium has been a “A dream of many years”
