New Beaver Field was a stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania. It served as the third home of the Penn State UniversityNittany Lionsfootball team, hosting the team until they moved in 1960 to Beaver Stadium. It was built to replace the original Beaver Field, retroactively called Old Beaver Field, which had a capacity of 500 and stood between present-day Osmond and Frear Laboratories. Prior to this, the team played on Old Main Lawn, a grassy area outside the main classroom building of the time. New Beaver Field was built to the northeast of Rec Hall on the present sites of the Nittany Lion Inn and the Nittany Parking Deck and held 30,000 people at its peak. In addition to football, the stadium had a track as well as baseball, lacrosse, and soccer fields. In 1959, the entire structure was disassembled and moved to the northeast corner of campus, where it was reassembled, expanded, and dubbed Beaver Stadium. Portions of the original 1909 design are still in use today. The stadium is named after James A. Beaver, who was a governor of Pennsylvania and a member of the school's board of trustees.
History
In the early 1900 Penn State announced its plans to create an athletic complex northeast of Rec Hall on undeveloped land. The complex would contain a football field, track, lacrosse field, soccer field and baseball field. Making way for the new athletic fields construction began by leveling the 18 acres of land the complex would sit on. The university was loaned wagons and scrapers for the project by alumnus A. C. Reed and the team of workers lead by Bellefonte, Pennsylvania builder R. B. Taylor began to clear the land. Once completed the team of builders began digging drainage ditches and laying water pipes for upkeep of the fields. The construction team was paid a was paid a total of $15,000 for the excavation and $8,000 for ditch and pipe work bringing the total cost to $23,000 . $15,000 was appropriated by the state of Pennsylvania for the field complex project. The university repurposed the existing grandstands from the old Beaver Field which sat 200 and built two wooden bleachers on either side that at 1000 giving the stadium an initial total capacity of 1,200. Once finished the complex was one of the largest athletic fields in the United States spanning 17 acres. As construction was finishing a name had yet to be given to the field complex. This stirred up a debate amongst alumni and students about what the field should be named. Many wanted to keep the name Beaver Field to honor General James A. Beaver the former governor of Pennsylvania and university board of trustees president that helped secure funding for the former field. Others suggested that the field should be named after George W. Atherton the former president of the university who had died just years earlier. The field was dedicated on May 7, 1909 at an interscholastic track meet hosted by the University. The new complex received the name New Beaver Field with the former Beaver Field being retroactively renamed Old Beaver Field. Around 200 meet invitations were sent to high school teams around Pennsylvania. As Penn State Football, Soccer and Lacrosse began playing home games on New Beaver Field the teams easily filled the 1200 capacity grandstands. The university continued to expand the seating capacity by building wood bleachers onto the existing grandstand. 4800 bleacher seats were added by the end of the 1920's bringing the total capacity of the stadium to 6000. The stadium’s seating was again restructured in the early 1920s due to increased student enrollment and ticket demand. The university demolished the old grandstands and installed two larger sets of bleacher seating on both the east and west sideline. The new upgrades allowed around 16,000 people to attend events hosted at the field. For large events when more seating was necessary, temporary stands around the end zones were erected to form a complete bowl bringing the total capacity to 20,000. Due to an increased press interest in the Nittany Lions, the university installed a press box in 1924. It was noted that the press box was a shack like structure with little room for reporters.
