| Additional Information: | Wisconsin-Illinois League Park was established in 1906 immediately north of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad siding on the eastern half of a block bounded by Carlisle Avenue, High Street, Forest Street (now Memorial Drive), and St. Patrick Street. The field initially contained a baseball field with a 30-foot-tall grandstand at the north end of the lot and two 20-foot-tall bleachers at angles on either side of this; the space was surrounded by a 10-foot-tall board fence and served as the home field for the Racine Baseball Association.
In 1919, William Horlick purchased the Wisconsin-Illinois League Park as well as the open space that comprised the western half of the block. During this period, many cities boasted “factory league” football and baseball teams sponsored by their leading industries; in Racine, Horlick’s Malted Milk Company sponsored football and baseball teams that played against teams from other Racine industries as well as those of nearby cities. Under Horlick’s direction, a football field was laid out in this open space in order to provide a dedicated playing field for the Horlick football team. Meanwhile, the eastern half of the block would continue to function as a baseball field for a variety of local games, including those played by the Horlick baseball team. The whole park was dedicated as Horlick Athletic Field in October of 1919.
During this period, nationwide attendance at local sporting events, particularly baseball and football, increased dramatically due, in part, to a general decrease in the length of the average work week (in the United States, average hours worked per week dropped from 57 hours in 1899 to 47 hours by 1920) as well as an increase in working-class wages. The resulting increase in discretionary time and money meant that many working-class residents of cities like Racine were able to attend or participate in local sporting events as a form of recreation and entertainment. Not surprisingly, the same period saw the construction of many of the country’s first permanent sports facilities. In addition to hosting early National Football League games in the 1920s, Horlick Athletic Field hosted regular drum and bugle corps shows, high school and local league baseball games, local softball games, and other outdoor sports events. As attendance at Horlick Athletic Field increased and as the space became an increasingly popular venue for a range of outdoor events, a stone wall was built along the perimeter of the baseball field (replacing the original board fence), with a stone ticket booth and entry gates at its northeast corner. Construction of the ticket booth as well as the northern stone wall and a portion of the eastern wall took place in 1936. The construction of the remainder of the eastern wall and all of the southern wall was completed as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project in the summer of 1937. The WPA work at Horlick Athletic field also included the construction of a stone shed to protect the electrical equipment that powered the flood lights.
From 1943 to 1950, the field was home to the Racine Belles, one of four original teams that formed the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943-1954). The League was formed in 1943 by Philip Wrigley and other major league baseball executives as a means of offsetting the impact that the United States’ participation in World War II had on Major League Baseball. With Horlick Athletic Field at the ready and attendance at local sporting events at an all-time high, the city of Racine put in a winning bid to host one of the founding AAGPBL teams. In 1943, the Racine Belles won the first AAGPBL world championship against the Kenosha Comets. In the early 1960s, the field was expanded west to Carlisle Avenue to accommodate a second playing field, a distinctive Contemporary style concession stand with a folded plate roof, and additional bleacher seating. The expansion required the removal of a large portion of the park’s western wall. Following the expansion, the baseball field was shifted westward with the football field occupying the eastern portion of the park. Today, Horlick Athletic Field hosts the Racine Raiders, a minor league team in the Mid-States Football League.
Horlick Athletic Field is Wisconsin’s only ballpark from the founding years of the AAGPBL and one of two remaining in the United States (Wisconsin’s other AAGPBL ballpark was located in Kenosha and was home to the Kenosha Comets; this park was demolished in 1980). In Rockford, Illinois, the original playing field that was home to the Rockford Peaches remains, although the field’s only remaining element from its historic period is a small brick ticket booth (the field’s historic grandstand is no longer extant and its existing baseball diamond is a 2010 reconstruction as the site was not maintained as a baseball field following the end of the AAGPBL era). The Indiana ballpark that was home to the AAGPBL’s fourth original team, the South Bend Blue Sox, is no longer extant.
Although Horlick Athletic Field’s original freestanding wood grandstand has been replaced with modern steel bleacher seating and the location of the baseball diamond has been shifted to the western half of the field, Horlick Athletic Field retains its historic stone walls along the northern, eastern, and southern edges of the park as well as its historic entrance and ticket booth at the northeast corner. Of the two remaining ball parks associated with the founding years of the AAGPBL in the United States, Horlick Athletic Field is by far the more substantial of the two. Horlick Athletic Field also has a long association with the history of both sports and recreation in Racine and stands as the city’s oldest continuously operated outdoor athletic field with distinct elements from the early twentieth century through the 1960s.
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