Why Nobody Can Tear Down the Houston Astrodome

In the early 1960s, a Houston man paid five million dollars for 495 acres of swamp and spent another $1.2 million draining it. On part of that ground they built the Astrodome, the world's first air-conditioned, domed, multi-purpose sports stadium. Roy Hofheinz was a county judge and a mayor of Houston. He told people the idea came from Rome, where the Colosseum had a covering called a velarium. The closer source was Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazzetto dello Sport, built in Rome in 1957, which Hofheinz had seen in the Sporting News. Harris County voters approved $18 million in bonds. The final cost is disputed: most sports references say $35 million, while a Columbia study puts it between $45 and $49 million. It was finished about six months ahead of schedule. It opened April 9th, 1965 in front of 47,879 people, with President Lyndon Johnson in the stands. Mickey Mantle hit the first indoor home run in Major League Baseball. Billy Graham called it the eighth wonder of the world later that year. The roof spans 642 feet with nothing holding up the middle, and carried 4,596 Lucite skylights. The skylights blinded outfielders, so they painted them over, which killed the grass. Hofheinz went to Monsanto for a synthetic replacement. It went down in 1966 and they called it AstroTurf. The sky boxes were the first luxury suites in any stadium. More than 100 million people passed through the turnstiles between 1965 and 2002. Muhammad Ali fought there four times. Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs on that floor in 1973. The Oilers left in 1996. The Astros left in 1999. The fire marshal declared the building unfit for occupancy in 2008 or 2009 depending on the account. Voters rejected a bond to save it in 2013, 53 to 47. Then it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014 and made a Texas state antiquities landmark in 2017, which means demolition now requires state approval. It is still standing. It is used as storage. #Astrodome #Houston #LostStadiums #Texas #FallenAndForgotten