Chicago Cubs: Five facts you might not know about Wrigley Field

The beloved home of the Chicago Cubs on the corner of Clark and Addison has plenty of stories to tell, including some that many people might not know.

106 years ago, a man named Charles Weeghman hired architect Zachary Taylor Davis to construct a ballpark on Chicago’s north side for his new Federal League team, the Chi-Feds (or Whales). The 14,000 seat concrete and steel single-deck stadium, which cost roughly $250,000 to build,  opened for the club in April 1914. Today the ballpark still stands and is known as Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs.

A majority of Cubs fans likely know the basic story of how Wrigley Field came to be over a century ago. In 2014 when they celebrated the 100th anniversary of the park, the Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks even wore throwback Federal League uniforms during the home opener. Most fans also likely know that the famous marquee, scoreboard and ivy all came at later times after the park was built. Yet there are so many details about the park’s history that can get lost.

Big-time history buffs probably know many of the other details, while younger and/or casual fans might not know as many of them. Here are five interesting facts about Wrigley Field a casual baseball fan might not know.

Chicago Cubs: The outside of Wrigley Field for a number of decades looked like a snapshot of the Industrial Revolution.

Today fans go to Wrigley Field and enjoy a pregame at Gallagher Way or see the Hotel Zachary on the Clark Street (west) side of the ballpark. This has obviously only been around a few years. The space is remembered by most living people as being the former player’s parking lot for a number of decades and where the old McDonald’s was across the street, but fans over 65 might recall the days the space was once the site of coal yards and industrial silos.

One might stumble across old photos of Wrigley Field and see a series of concrete silos, train tracks and steel cranes. The coal bunkers in that area were owned by the Collins and Wiese coal company from the 1920s until around the start of the 1960s. The bigger concrete silos were owned by Chicago Solvay Coke, which had signs bearing the name on top of them.

There was also an old street that ran along side the grandstand through that triangle space. Today it was about from the spot where there is space between the new office building and the ballpark through where the Ernie Banks statue is. Much of that area also had tracks running for both freight trains and street cars to help transport the public to the ballpark and surrounding areas. In fact, when they began the 1060 Project in late 2014/early 2015, the surrounding roads were dug up and the old tracks were found underneath.

By 1962 all of that stuff was gone and the space was just a flat parking lot. Next time you are at Gallagher Way in the grassy area or the fountain areas with the benches and stage area, remember you are standing on a piece of land that was once an industrial yard.

Chicago Cubs: There really is not much left from what was put in place in 1914.

Over the 2017 and 2018 offseasons, Cubs fans saw pictures and video of the concrete seating area in the lower grandstands get completely ripped up and rebuilt. Some might think that they were killing off what was left of the original seating area built in 1914. Well…the truth is the original concrete in the lower level of the seating area has been gone for decades.

Most of the lower level concrete that was replaced was actually from the late 60s/early 70s when the seating area was redone. Engineering and materials just were not as durable back then as they are now so concrete was subject to lots of wear and tear over years due to foot traffic and exposure to the elements. One fan could probably see even the 60s/70s concrete was really taking a beating. Remember in 2004 when chucks of it fell?

As historic the ballpark itself is, the truth is there is very little remaining from the original 1914 structure. It is really just the steel skeletal structure of the lower level and roof that remain. Two big parts of the original 1914 structure had been demolished in recent years: the outer brick wall beyond the old bleachers in 2005 and the visitor’s clubhouse in 2018. The elements of the park that are deemed landmark status are mostly things added after the initial 1914 construction.

Chicago Cubs: Fans could not always keep foul balls way back when, this changed at the corner of Clark and Addison.

Imagine being at a ballgame and catching a foul ball. You are excited as fans around you cheer. The joy is killed when an usher comes over and demands you give the ball back to the field. This is how things used to be a century ago. Charlie Weeghman defied these laws when he opened the park for the Federal League in 1914.

Instead of having fans return the balls, Weeghman put in a policy to where he allowed fans to keep them. He wanted the experience at his ballpark to be unique and stand out. When he bought shares in the Cubs and moved them to Wrigley Field (then called Weeghman Park) in 1916 he would institute the same policy despite strong criticism.

Eventually the policies changed and fans all over baseball got to keep foul balls. This long-loved tradition can be traced back to Wrigley Field. Might as well worth noting that Weeghman also used the park to establish the first ever permanent ballpark concession stands (behind the home plate section). Later Wrigley Field was the first ballpark in the majors to bring an organ in to play music in 1941.

Chicago Cubs: It took two years to add the upper deck at Wrigley Field.

After the first major expansion previously mentioned in 1923, the Cubs decided to really increase their capacity at Wrigley Field with the addition of the upper deck. This project was completed over two years (1927-1928) and it required building one section at a time. So for the 1927 season, Wrigley looked a bit funky.

That year saw the upper deck built from the left field corner to about where the curve in the pressbox area starts. They kept the original pressbox in the center of the grandstand for that season so the new upper deck did not go quite half way, but close to it. The rest was just the original single deck look it had when it was built. Here is a link to a picture of what it looked like.

In 1928 the upper deck was completed to the configuration we know well today. This was the year the ballpark really began to take its famous shape that everyone knows. The ivy walls, scoreboard and bleachers were a decade away from being built, but the grandstands being double-decked was a big step in creating the now-famous image of Wrigley Field.

These are just a few things that stand out in Wrigley Field history. Hopefully plenty more cool additions to come. Did you know all of this?