Qualla: Cotton Bowl Stadium

Cotton Bowl Stadium: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photograph: NASA, Public domain. In 1950, a Dallas baseball promoter hatched a scheme to break the Texas League attendance record: put Ty Cobb in a uniform and let him bat. The 63-year-old Georgia Peach agreed, and the other retired legends followed -- Dizzy Dean, Mickey Cochrane, Tris Speaker, Charlie Gehringer, Home Run Baker. On game day, 54,151 fans packed the Cotton Bowl to watch Cobb hammer balls into the stands, Dean walk the leadoff batter and get himself tossed in a staged ejection, and the whole spectacle unfold on a field built for football in the middle of a state fairground. The attendance record still stands. It was exactly the kind of improbable, oversized event this stadium was made for.

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Image: Photograph: NASA | Public domain

Cotton Bowl Stadium: The House That Doak Built

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Corpx, CC BY-SA 2.5. Fair Park Stadium cost $328,000 when it was completed in 1930, a concrete horseshoe seating 45,507 on the grounds of the State Fair of Texas. For its first six years, it was simply where Dallas high schoolers played football. Then in 1936 it was rechristened the Cotton Bowl, and ...

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Image: Corpx | CC BY-SA 2.5

Cotton Bowl Stadium: Football's Revolving Door

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Corpx, CC BY-SA 2.5. The Cotton Bowl has served as home to more professional and college football tenants than perhaps any stadium in America. The ill-fated 1952 Dallas Texans of the NFL played four games there before going bankrupt and finishing their season as a traveling team based in Hershey, Pen...

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Image: Corpx | CC BY-SA 2.5

Cotton Bowl Stadium: Where the World Played

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LHC88, CC BY 4.0. In 1993, the Cotton Bowl ripped out the AstroTurf it had laid in 1970, widened the field, expanded the press box, and returned to natural grass -- all to satisfy FIFA's requirements for the 1994 World Cup. The stadium hosted six matches during that tournament, one of only nine ve...

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Image: LHC88 | CC BY 4.0

Cotton Bowl Stadium: Rock and Roll Under the Texas Sun

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SFOTPR, CC BY-SA 3.0. On October 11, 1956, a 21-year-old Elvis Presley drew more than 27,000 people to the Cotton Bowl, setting a Texas record for outdoor concert attendance. Two decades later, the stadium became ground zero for Texas arena rock. The first Texxas Jam in July 1978 sold out at over 80,0...

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Image: SFOTPR | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cotton Bowl Stadium: A Stadium That Refuses to Retire

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photo: Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0. By the early 2000s, the Cotton Bowl Classic had moved to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the Cowboys had long since departed, and the stadium's capacity had shrunk from its 1990s peak. Yet the Cotton Bowl kept reinventing itself. Temporary end-zone stands boosted seating to 90,000 for...

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Image: Photo: Andreas Praefcke | CC BY 3.0