Why Cleveland's Stadium Was Dumped in a Lake.

On November 7, 1995, more than 70 percent of Cuyahoga County voted to extend the sin tax and put $175 million into fixing up Cleveland Municipal Stadium. They had learned the day before that Art Modell was moving the Browns to Baltimore. A year later the building came down. About a quarter of it, 5,000 cubic yards of reinforced concrete, was sunk a half mile offshore to build fishing reefs in Lake Erie. The stadium opened on July 1, 1931, on ground the city pushed 200 feet out into the lake. It cost $3,035,245, about 21 percent over budget, and crews finished it in 370 days. With room for 78,189 people, it had the largest seating capacity of any outdoor arena in the world. The first event was a heavyweight title fight on July 3, 1931: Max Schmeling beat Young Stribling. The city built it without a baseball tenant. The Indians played their first game there on July 31, 1932 and lost 1 to 0, then went back to League Park and split their schedule for years. They didn't move in full time until 1947. Then 1948. The Indians drew 2,620,627 fans, the highest single season attendance in baseball at the time. Satchel Paige's first major league start drew 72,434. Game 4 of the World Series drew 81,897 and Game 5 drew 86,288, a record that stood for decades. That same night the Browns played football on the same grass in front of 31,187 and beat Brooklyn 30 to 17. Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak ended on that field on July 17, 1941. The Cleveland Buckeyes opened the Negro World Series there in September 1945 and swept it. Frank Robinson managed his first game on April 8, 1975 as the first Black manager in the majors, put himself in the lineup, and homered. Len Barker threw a perfect game on May 15, 1981 in front of 7,290 paying fans. The Browns won four straight AAFC titles, then the NFL title in 1950, again in 1954, and beat Baltimore 27 to 0 on December 27, 1964 in front of 79,544. That was Cleveland's last major championship until 2016. The first Monday Night Football broadcast came from there on September 21, 1970. Ten Cent Beer Night ended in a forfeit on June 4, 1974 in front of 25,134 people. Red Right 88 in 1981 and The Drive in 1987 both happened in that building. Art Modell took over running the stadium on a 25 year lease in 1973. When the Indians left for Jacobs Field in 1994, their rent went with them, about $700,000 a year. A quarter of the suites sat empty. Baltimore offered a state funded stadium and the revenue to go with it. The last Browns game was December 17, 1995, a 26 to 10 win over Cincinnati. Fans tore the bleachers out of the Dawg Pound and carried them home. The 1996 settlement kept the name, the colors and the records in Cleveland, and required a new stadium on the same site. Demolition started November 4, 1996 and finished by March 1, 1997. A quarter of the stadium went into Lake Erie. Fish live in it now. #Cleveland #ClevelandBrowns #DawgPound