The ballpark wasn’t iconic in appearance. It was functional, not aesthetic. Like a lot of early ballparks, its dimensions were dictated by the city lot it rested on. It had a traditional northeast orientation with the left field foul pole only about 300 feet from home plate. A home run over the left field wall could turn into a windshield hazard for cars traveling down Broadway. Support beams for the covered grandstands behind home plate and along the third base line created many obstructed view seats. When lights were added in 1935, the poles were in between the seats and the playing field. The light pole in the deepest part of the park in left- center, about 400 feet away, was also in play inside the outfield fence. 

The largest permanent seating capacity only reached 2,500, but in 1942 8,000 fans crammed into the park to watch a major league exhibition game. The ballpark, much like the attendance for that game, over-achieved. 

Council Bluffs is a historic crossroads of the westward movement – Lewis and Clark, the Mormon Trail, a branch of the Oregon Trail, the transcontinental railroad – all crisscross in the city. The crossroads legacy of the town is also reflected in baseball during the first half of the 20th century. Town teams, Negro League teams, the House of David, and major league barnstormers were all attracted to the park on Broadway. 

In 1910 baseball enthusiasts in Council Bluffs sought to join a new town-team league of communities in Southwest Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri. Along with a team in the new league, supporters also sought to build a new ballpark. Securing land from the waterworks department, a field was laid out and seating capacity for 1500 was built in two months for the opening game between the Council Bluffs Merchants and the Omaha Americans. The home team prevailed 2 to 1 before 1,200 partisan fans. 

The trajectory of the ballpark changed in 1921. The Council Bluffs Amateur Baseball Association created the Southwestern Iowa Baseball Tournament. Starting with eight local teams, the tournament grew into a 26-team, two-class division tournament that attracted top touring teams competing for $6,000 in prizes. 

In just the second year of the tournament in 1922, a team from Missouri Valley, Iowa wanted to increase their chances of winning the $1,000 first place prize. Midway through their game against a team from Hamburg, Iowa, the score was tied 2-2. A taxi pulled up next to the ballpark and four players, still wearing their Omaha Buffaloes (a Class A professional team) uniforms, stepped out and were promptly inserted into the Missouri Valley line-up. One of the players was future Hall of Famer Heine Manush. Missouri Valley won the game, but not the tournament. 

With growing prize money, the tournament attracted some of the top barnstorming teams from across the country. The famous bearded House of David team from Benton Harbor, Michigan made their first appearance in 1927. They were regular participants in the tourney and in 1932 they won the first place prize with the assistance of recently retired major league Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander. 

Traveling Negro teams started coming to the annual baseball tournament in 1930. Gilkerson’s Union Giants from Chicago were the first all-black team to get a spot in the tournament. This opened the door for other Negro baseball teams to come to Council Bluffs. The legendary Kansas City Monarchs were such frequent visitors over the years that they developed a special relationship with the owner of a Phillip’s 66 gas station located near the ballpark. When the Monarchs were in town after a night game and would need gas for their team bus after hours, Matthew Elder, the gas station owner, gave the Monarchs a key to his station. They would turn on the pumps and fill up their tanks. Then they would either leave a check or send it a few days later in the mail. 

Matt Elder also developed a personal relationship with Satchel Paige. One time when Paige was in town he had some dental work done. He needed a place to lie down to recover, so he let himself into the back porch of the Elder house, nearby to their gas station. The Elders would leave ham salad sandwiches on the back porch for some of the Negro team players to help themselves to, along with some of the hobos that would ride the nearby rails. When a neighbor saw Paige enter the back porch of the house they notified the police thinking it was a break-in. It turned out it was just Satchel lying on a cot on the back porch. 

Satchel Paige is just one of eleven players with ties to the Kansas City Monarchs that are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame who played at the ballpark on the west end of town. Bullet Joe Rogan managed the Monarchs in a game in 1931 that also included Turkey Stearnes and Bill Foster. The following season the Monarchs came through town at the end of their season. Their Hall of Fame owner, J.L. Wilkinson, stepped in to manage the team, which included fellow Hall of Famers Cool Papa Bell and Willie Wells. 

Lights came to Broadway Park in 1935. Just four days after the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies played the first night game in major league history, a Council Bluffs team hosted the Sioux City Ghosts under the lights. The Negro team from Sioux City did not live up to its billing, as the home town team kept the visitors hitless and handed them a 27-0 drubbing. 

In 1935 Broadway Park also became the home ballpark of its first professional team. The Omaha Packers of the Western League, like many minor league teams in the 1930s, fell victim to the Great Depression. As the team was ready to fold, the Council Bluffs Junior Chamber of Commerce stepped in and assumed ownership of the team. The team relocated across the river and were renamed the Rails as a tribute to the town’s railroad history. Unfortunately the experiment only lasted for the remainder of the 1935 season. 

The Southwestern Iowa Baseball Tournament, along with the Council Bluffs Amateur Baseball Association, were also casualties of the Great Depression. When the Council Bluffs American Legion Rainbow Post 2 assumed a new lease on the grounds, the ballpark became known as Legion Park. 

A one-man barnstorming attraction showed up at Legion Park in August 1941. Five thousand fans jammed into the ballpark to see one of the most popular baseball players of the time, Dizzy Dean. Recently retired due to a sore arm, the future Hall of Famer still had enough left in the old arm to pitch the first two innings for the Council Bluffs Cardinals against the Brooklyn Giants. He pitched two perfect innings, striking out two. Dean stopped in Council Bluffs on his way to visit Boys Town, across the Missouri River on the outskirts of Omaha. 

The following season fans in Council Bluffs were treated to the first game at Legion Park between two major league teams. In a rare scheduling situation the St. Louis Browns had no games scheduled from Monday, September 21 through Friday, September 25. To fill the void the team would play exhibition games in Sioux City, Council Bluffs and Davenport. Their opponent in Council Bluffs was the Pittsburgh Pirates, who had a couple mid-week days off. 

Anticipating a large crowd, temporary bleachers seating 2,500 were erected to go along with the 2,500 permanent seats. The attendance far exceeded their expectations as over 8,000 rabid baseball fans turned out to watch the Browns defeat the Pirates by a score of 6-0. One future Hall of Famer played in the exhibition game and three more were in attendance. Rick Ferrell went one for four and handled the catching duties for the Browns. The Pirates brought three future Hall of Famers to the game. Frankie Frisch was the manager of the Pirates, Honus Wagner was on the coaching staff and catcher Al Lopez was on the 22-man roster, but after catching the day before in St. Louis, he got the day off. 

After World War II Legion Park hosted what is now designated as a regular season major league game, not an exhibition game like the one played in 1942. The Kansas City Monarchs were frequent visitors to the area and many times they took on local teams. However, on July 23, 1946 their opponent was the Indianapolis Clowns, a rival team in the Negro American League. When Major League Baseball in 2020 elevated seven Negro Leagues between 1920-1948 to major league status, the game that day has taken on new significance. It is now the first of six games played at Legion Park from 1946-1948 that now count as major league games. 

Four thousand fans, “by far the largest of the season”, according to The Daily Nonpareil, packed the stadium. Along with their crowd-pleasing extra-curricular stunts, such as their famous shadow ball routine led by Goose Tatum, the Clowns prevailed 9-6 over the Monarchs. In the line-up for the Monarchs that day were two future Hall of Famers, Buck O’Neil at first and Hilton Smith playing right field even though he would receive Hall of Fame honors as a pitcher. 

At the conclusion of the 1946 Major League Baseball season a couple famous barnstorming tours came through the area. The first featured Iowa’s favorite son, Bob Feller, and Negro League legend, Satchel Paige, in the middle of their 34 games in 27 days tour covering 17 states, starting in Pennsylvania and ending up in California. The two Hall of Fame pitchers and their All-Star teams faced off against each other in Council Bluffs on October 12, 1946. 

Four thousand fans braved the cold weather to see Feller and Paige each pitch three scoreless innings in relief. Feller surrendered three hits, walked two, hit two and struck out four while working the fifth through seventh innings. Paige came into the game in the sixth inning and gave up four hits, two walks and also struck out four. The Feller All-Stars featured two additional Hall of Famers. Shortstop Phil Rizzuto collected one hit and made a spectacular catch on a foul ball, and Bob Lemon earned the save in their 3-2 victory. 

Kansas City Monarchs alumni Jackie Robinson wasn’t with the Monarchs when they played their official major league games in Council Bluffs from 1946-48. He had signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1945 season. He did make it to Council Bluffs the following fall. Capitalizing on his growing notoriety, Robinson put together his own barnstorming tour. 

Just three days after the Feller-Paige All-Stars entertained the fans at Legion Park, the Jackie Robinson All-Stars pulled into town to take on a hastily thrown together local team who called themselves the Firemen. The cold weather persisted as only 500 fans watched the game featuring Jackie Robinson who just completed his season with a batting title for the Montreal Royals, a farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Six months later Robinson would break the Major League Baseball color barrier playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson went 0 for 3, but played despite being under the weather because “he did not want to fail the fans”. A two-out single with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth elevated the Firemen to an 8-7 victory over the Robinson All-Stars. 

The Omaha Cardinals played at Legion Park one more season in 1948 before moving to their new permanent home field in Omaha the following year. Playing second base for the Lincoln A’s that season in the Western League was Nellie Fox. In a game at Legion Park on July 21 the future Hall of Famer batted lead-off and went 0 for 4 as his team got thumped by the Omaha Cardinals 18-2. 

The legendary Kansas City Monarchs rosters included two additional Hall of Famers who played at Legion Park. Willard Brown, a power-hitting outfielder, made multiple appearances in the late 1940s. Then in 1950 rookie shortstop Ernie Banks collected three hits against the Council Bluffs Rainbows and was the last of the 25 Hall of Famers to appear at Broadway/Legion Park.

The next notable visitor to the old ballpark was the wrecking ball. The main grandstand, which was built in 1921, was in such disrepair that the Legion ownership could not obtain insurance without spending approximately $10,000. A spokesperson for Legion Rainbow Post 2 explained that the Legion simply didn’t have the money to make the necessary repairs. 

Even though it existed for less than half a century, the ballpark at 35th and Broadway far exceeded the dreams of the “baseball enthusiasts” who first conceived the playing field back in 1910. No one would have dreamed that the unassuming ballpark would host 25 MLB Hall of Famers and be credited with six official major league games.

(Story by John Shorey.  Mr. Shorey is a member of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County).