Weidner Field latest addition to rich history of Colorado Springs sports venues

May 16—Colorado Springs' new downtown stadium, Weidner Field, and the Ed Robson Arena, which is scheduled to open on the Colorado College campus later this year, are the latest additions to a vast history of Colorado Springs sports venues reaching back to the early 20th century.

Nearly 100 years before the Colorado Rockies laced up their cleats in Denver, Boulevard Park was the home stadium of the Colorado Springs Millionaires of the Class A Western League. The city's first professional baseball team played at Boulevard Park from 1902 to 1905, when the Millionaires moved south midseason and became the Pueblo Indians.

In the 1920s, Broadmoor Hotel founder Spencer Penrose organized the Broadmoor Polo Association, a league that played its matches on the hotel grounds. Several matches were heralded on the pages of The Gazette, then known as the Gazette-Telegraph: "Star Polo Players Who Will Get Into First Game of Season on Broadmoor Field Today," read a headline in the June 21, 1925 issue of the newspaper.

An avid sportsman, Penrose was also responsible for several competitive events in the Pikes Peak region, some of which — like the International Hill Climb and the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo — endure today, more than 80 years after his death.

Memorial Park was the home of the first iteration of the Colorado Springs Sky Sox in the 1950s. The Chicago White Sox affiliate played at the ballpark, later named Spurgeon Field, from 1950 to 1958 and sent a number of players to the major leagues. The Sky Sox, reborn in 1988 to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, played at Sky Sox Stadium — now known as UCHealth Park — until the team moved to San Antonio in 2019.

In 1938, Penrose and Broadmoor co-owner Charles Tutt Jr. converted an equestrian area on the hotel grounds into an ice skating arena called the Broadmoor Ice Palace. The Palace became the home of the Broadmoor Skating Club, as well as the Tigers' hockey program. In the 1960s, a young figure skater named Peggy Fleming trained at the Broadmoor before going on to win an Olympic gold medal in 1968.

Will Rogers Stadium, also built on the grounds of the Broadmoor, was home to a regular-season National Football League game in 1939, when the Philadelphia Eagles squared off against the Cleveland Rams (now the Los Angeles Rams). The next regular-season professional football game in Colorado wouldn't happen for another 21 years, when the Denver Broncos hosted the Boston Patriots in the inaugural matchup of the now-defunct American Football League.

Doug Fitzgerald and Danny Summers contributed to this story.