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Rogers Field (Washington)

defunct stadium at Washington State University

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ7359275 ↗
Source-derived summary

Rogers Field was an outdoor athletic stadium in the northwest United States, on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. It was the home venue of the WSU Cougars football and track teams until severely damaged by a fire in April 1970. Partially demolished in early 1971, Rogers Field was replaced by the concrete Martin Stadium, which was built on the same site and opened in 1972.

History

Originally opened 134 years ago in 1892 for track and field and named "Soldier Field", it hosted its first football game in 1895, when WSU defeated its Palouse neighbor Idaho 10–4. In 1902, the stadium was renamed for Governor John Rogers, who died in office the previous December. In its early years, it also hosted Cougar baseball, with home plate in the southeast corner. The final structure was completely rebuilt in 1936.

The 23,500-seat wooden stadium had a horseshoe-shaped three-section grandstand, open on the west end, with a quarter-mile (402 m) running track. The press box sat at the top of the south sideline's grandstand, and the playing field was natural grass, at an elevation of 2,530 feet (770 m) above sea level. The field was unlit, but plans were in place to install AstroTurf for the 1970 season.

Editorial summary

“Rogers Field (Washington)” enters the record as defunct stadium at Washington State University. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rogers, Field and Washington can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1970, 1971, 1972, 1892—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1892. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Rogers, Field and Washington.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Rogers Field (Washington)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rogers, Field and Washington provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7359275. Authority coordinates are 46.732, -117.160. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1892.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Rogers Field (Washington)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Rogers Field (Washington) primary sources, Rogers Field (Washington) archive and Rogers research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rogers Field (Washington)”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Rogers Field (Washington)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.