Did You Know Waldo Stadium Used To Be A Pond?
When looking at a large college football stadium one of the things many individuals think of is what was there before or what had to be destroyed to build this huge masterpiece of a stadium. Oftentimes, it's empty land, and trees are taken down, but here in Kalamazoo, that wasn't the case.
Waldo Stadium, which is home to the Western Michigan University Broncos football team, is a place that has a unique history. Before Waldo Stadium opened up in the fall of 1939, the space sat empty. Long before that, there was a body of water that sat in its place and was used by a brewery company as a local water resource.
Way back in the 1800s, there was a Brewery that stood near the intersection of Lovell, Oakland, and Stadium Drive/Michigan Ave. This Brewery was known by the name of the Kalamazoo Spring Brewery and drew water from the three small ponds that surrounded the building.
After the brewery business fell through the building was eventually sold and used for other use. Now, fast forward to the early 1900s and WMU has purchased the land and is looking to better its campus, so what do they do? They build a football stadium right where one of the ponds used to be.
Now, this makes a lot of sense when you look at the size of the hills around the stadium, the valley/trough that it sits in, and even the occasional flooding that happens to the stadium when there are large amounts of precipitation. What do you think about this idea, was it a smart one? Did you know about the rich history of Waldo Stadium?
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