"Old" Dornblaser

[UMGriz75]

Is this the same stadium the Griz playing in in the 70's?

I'm thinking the moved to the "temp" on south Higgins in 68. Prolly played in this one until then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornblaser_Field

The "UC" -- student union -- construction started in 1966. It was quite a hole in the ground on the north end of Dornblaser, but the histories say that Dornblaser wasn't moved to South Higgins until 1968. I think Don Read's PSU lost a game to the Griz there that year.

McGill Hall was built in 1953, and shows in the photo, and if the Botany Annex was indeed built in 1956, then this photo must date from either 1954 or 1955. Edit: well, wait a minute, the new Grizzly Pool and outdoor skating facility shows in this photo (replacing the old Pool at Schreiber that still exists under temporary flooring), and that was built in 1958. The Botany Annex must have been planted literally on the front steps of that old three story white building next to Main Hall.

 

[UMGriz75]

Compare.

 

[Spanky]

I recall the beautiful fall days walking to the games at Dornblaser. Leaves on the ground....perfect atmosphere for football.

 

[grizophile]

Old men's gym at S end of football field, over the W entrance to the gym was a large statue of a Greek like discus thrower at beginning of his throw. Legend was that he would actually throw it the first time a virgin walked through the door.

 

[ddmann]

Talk about old memories. Not certain but I believe the Higgins effort was built between my third and fourth grade years. I can easily remember my little group riding our bikes out the campus to goof off on that field (we weren't too fond of that track though, falling down on that thing could be painful). I also remember my uncle (he lived with my family while attending) being very disgruntled at "progress" being the demise of the field.

As to the Higgins effort my question for the board is this: how many of you and your friends chained your bicycles to the fence and then used the creek bed as an access point to the field and free admission. I seem to remember we had a 50 / 50 chance of just walking in through the gate and whomever was in charge just let us urchins in, or, being rebuffed and having to use the "creek entrance".

 

[zengriz]

...holy dinosaurs...
...great history thread...
...definition of back in the day...

... :clap: ...

 

[cmtgrizzly]

When I attended UM, 92-96, the lodge was between Craig and Knowles Halls. Is this same lodge being referred to several posts back or was there a change as to which building was referred to as the lodge?

 

[Ursa Major]

...holy dinosaurs...
...great history thread...
...definition of back in the day...

... :clap: ...

Plus 1!

The same guys who snuck into games in the 50's as kids are now telling us to get off their lawn. Enjoy men!

 

[stilwtrgrizz]

UMGrizz75--"McGill Hall was built in 1953, and shows in the photo, and if the Botany Annex was indeed built in 1956, then this photo must date from either 1954 or 1955. Edit: well, wait a minute, the new Grizzly Pool and outdoor skating facility shows in this photo (replacing the old Pool at Schreiber that still exists under temporary flooring), and that was built in 1958. The Botany Annex must have been planted literally on the front steps of that old three story white building next to Main Hall."

Went swimming in that pool ALL THE TIME. I had forgotten all about the ice rink and pool being there. HOW COULD I ?? :? First time I ever really kissed a girl, I was holding hands, skating, and kissing her all at the same time, was in that covered outdoor rink. Lead pipe cinch I couldn't ever pull that off now.

 

[kemajic]

UMGrizz75--"McGill Hall was built in 1953, and shows in the photo, and if the Botany Annex was indeed built in 1956, then this photo must date from either 1954 or 1955. Edit: well, wait a minute, the new Grizzly Pool and outdoor skating facility shows in this photo (replacing the old Pool at Schreiber that still exists under temporary flooring), and that was built in 1958. The Botany Annex must have been planted literally on the front steps of that old three story white building next to Main Hall."

Went swimming in that pool ALL THE TIME. I had forgotten all about the ice rink and pool being there. HOW COULD I ?? :? First time I ever really kissed a girl, I was holding hands, skating, and kissing her all at the same time was in that covered outdoor rink. Lead pipe cinch I couldn't ever pull that off now.

Good for you; girls were scarce. 2:1 men in the mid-60's.

 

[UMGriz75]

From the October 6, 1986 Spokesman-Review:

 

[stilwtrgrizz]

UMGrizz75--"McGill Hall was built in 1953, and shows in the photo, and if the Botany Annex was indeed built in 1956, then this photo must date from either 1954 or 1955. Edit: well, wait a minute, the new Grizzly Pool and outdoor skating facility shows in this photo (replacing the old Pool at Schreiber that still exists under temporary flooring), and that was built in 1958. The Botany Annex must have been planted literally on the front steps of that old three story white building next to Main Hall."

Went swimming in that pool ALL THE TIME. I had forgotten all about the ice rink and pool being there. HOW COULD I ?? :? First time I ever really kissed a girl, I was holding hands, skating, and kissing her all at the same time was in that covered outdoor rink. Lead pipe cinch I couldn't ever pull that off now.

Good for you; girls were scarce. 2:1 men in the mid-60's.

I was married by the mid 60's, but the numbers were a lot better for us guys in Missoula in the mid-late 50's. Ask one of the 3 or 4 8th grade
boys from Washington Grade School's 8th grade class that graduated in the spring of 1960. Was about 10 to one girls over boys in that class as I remember it. (Isn't that right RABIDAWG ?)

 

[kemajic]

From the October 6, 1986 Spokesman-Review:

Good article; knew all that, but good to see it documented.

 

[garizzalies]

So, I got a question for you old boys. Were girls easy back in the day? I've got mixed reports. You always hear about the free-lovin 60s and the one guy above said the statue would only move if a virgin walked in, but then I hear about of the clothes, strict rules, goofy activities, mean old vets for fathers, and think it must have taken an epic amount of work to get into their pants. I mean, shit, everyone married their high-school sweetheart back then.

 

[UMGriz75]

So, I got a question for you old boys. Were girls easy back in the day? I've got mixed reports. You always hear about the free-lovin 60s and the one guy above said the statue would only move if a virgin walked in, but then I hear about of the clothes, strict rules, goofy activities, mean old vets for fathers, and think it must have taken an epic amount of work to get into their pants. I mean, shit, everyone married their high-school sweetheart back then.

The "break" came in the period 1966-1968. Homecoming King and Queen were abolished sometime around there. Used to be all their photos in the Lobby of Field House going back to Moses. Then the Yearbook stopped publishing. David Rorvik at the Kaimin took on everyone with his radical editorials. Cheerleaders? Gone. Pep Band? Pep bad. Denny Blouin was hired by the English Dept and penned a nasty little essay in 1969 called "Student as N*****," in which, among a variety of attacks on traditional education, he complained that the English Dept had the nerve to grade students in poetry class on their poems, offering his observation that "grading students on how they write poems is like grading them on how they F...". Well, he got everyone's attention, that's for sure. Woodstock in 1968 was an inspiration. You couldn't go across the Milwaukee tracks down by the river without stumbling across various mini-Woodstocks "in progress" along the river. Stoianoff's "parties" up in the woods became legendary for drugs, alcohol and nudity. Yes, the times were much more conducive to "free love." Then, an ROTC colonel who was pushing back publicly got arrested for soliciting in Salt Lake City. Then just to top things off, Jack Swarthout and the Athletic Department financial aid scandal that turned much of the student body against collegiate varsity sports as corrupt and corrupting.

It was a rout.

It was a marvel that when Jud Heathcote arrived, he was able to restore many of the sport traditions on a campus that had thoroughly rejected them. And I mean that, singlehandedly, without much exaggeration, he turned things around.

However, that period of time is no doubt why the temporary "Dornblaser" ended up staying out at South Avenue for nearly 20 years.

 

[UMGriz75]

I'm still a youngin' but this photo is fascinating. That is the Adam's Center in the background, correct? Thanks for sharing!

It was quite a splash in news stories of the day when built. The laminated, arched wooden supports of the roof were noted as the first materials in the world of such size.

They were a new technology, those giant, curved laminated beams. Using "glue" to hold boards together in large bunches was not generally accepted. The UM Field House was something of a demonstration project. They were so big that they could only come in on railroad cars, and the Milwaukee Road had to make special arrangements to get them shipped in from wherever, fortunately they could unload them right there on campus as the railroad's Missoula East Yard limit was next to the Physical Plant. Probably could not transport them in today with the Milwaukee gone. The design and technology was very successful, and when the FH expansion was made, the identical beam design was used for the expansion, enabling the interior to be shifted from an east-west orientation for the basketball floor to the current north-south configuration.

 

[UMGriz75]

First time I ever really kissed a girl, I was holding hands, skating, and kissing her all at the same time, was in that covered outdoor rink. Lead pipe cinch I couldn't ever pull that off now.

The skating, the kissing, or doing them both at the same time?

That covered outdoor skating rink was really a neat feature for UM. I learned to skate there. No girls involved unfortunately or fortunately as the case may be, depending on whether they wanted to be drug down by my many wipe-outs on skates.

 

[stilwtrgrizz]

So, I got a question for you old boys. Were girls easy back in the day? I've got mixed reports. You always hear about the free-lovin 60s and the one guy above said the statue would only move if a virgin walked in, but then I hear about of the clothes, strict rules, goofy activities, mean old vets for fathers, and think it must have taken an epic amount of work to get into their pants. I mean, shit, everyone married their high-school sweetheart back then.

SHIT NO THEY WEREN'T EASY !!! Why son, it took a REAL man to gt in a girls pants back then. Most of the time you had to go with a girl for 3 or 4 years before you even worried about it. Just to go on a date, you had the run the parent gauntlet, along with any brothers and sisters that were older, of which, back then, there were MANY. Picking them up for date no easy task either. In the winter, we had to walk to and from their houses, many times in 3-4 feet of snow, uphill, and 90 MPH winds in your face, BOTH WAYS !!!!!!!! EASY you say..... EASY ????????

 

[GrizLA]

So, I got a question for you old boys. Were girls easy back in the day? I've got mixed reports. You always hear about the free-lovin 60s and the one guy above said the statue would only move if a virgin walked in, but then I hear about of the clothes, strict rules, goofy activities, mean old vets for fathers, and think it must have taken an epic amount of work to get into their pants. I mean, shit, everyone married their high-school sweetheart back then.

The "break" came in the period 1966-1968. Homecoming King and Queen were abolished sometime around there. Used to be all their photos in the Lobby of Field House going back to Moses. Then the Yearbook stopped publishing. David Rorvik at the Kaimin took on everyone with his radical editorials. Cheerleaders? Gone. Pep Band? Pep bad. Denny Blouin was hired by the English Dept and penned a nasty little essay in 1969 called "Student as N*****," in which, among a variety of attacks on traditional education, he complained that the English Dept had the nerve to grade students in poetry class on their poems, offering his observation that "grading students on how they write poems is like grading them on how they F...". Well, he got everyone's attention, that's for sure. Woodstock in 1968 was an inspiration. You couldn't go across the Milwaukee tracks down by the river without stumbling across various mini-Woodstocks "in progress" along the river. Stoianoff's "parties" up in the woods became legendary for drugs, alcohol and nudity. Yes, the times were much more conducive to "free love." Then, an ROTC colonel who was pushing back publicly got arrested for soliciting in Salt Lake City. Then just to top things off, Jack Swarthout and the Athletic Department financial aid scandal that turned much of the student body against collegiate varsity sports as corrupt and corrupting.

It was a rout.

It was a marvel that when Jud Heathcote arrived, he was able to restore many of the sport traditions on a campus that had thoroughly rejected them. And I mean that, singlehandedly, without much exaggeration, he turned things around.

However, that period of time is no doubt why the temporary "Dornblaser" ended up staying out at South Avenue for nearly 20 years.

Your time line is a little confused but within reason. I still remember Dave Rorvik's editorial regarding birth control (a rat on a string)..Front Street was where sex,drugs, and R & R were where it was at...Basketball remained popular while football slipped...but, I remember the empty bottles sliding down, beneath bleachers at Dornblaser and getting rousing cheers from the students while those on the other side wondered why the students cheered when they didn't even pay attention to whether or not the team scored. Football was not much of a priority for many in the mid sixties. I recall Missoula as Berkely North in those days...too bad it changed...alas.

 

[Blgs Griz Fan]

Is this the same stadium the Griz playing in in the 70's?

I'm thinking the moved to the "temp" on south Higgins in 68. Prolly played in this one until then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornblaser_Field

Thank you. I am remembering the temp stadium. My lasting memory was of some over weight hippy vendor walking the stands sell pepsi but calling out "Mix!"