The nearly 90-year-old Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City remains a big focal point for high school football in that region.
The red-stone facade of Taft Stadium, aka Energy FC Field, sits at 2501 N. May Ave. (aka Route 66) and was a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression era.
It plays host to Northwest Classen High School, John Marshall High School, Classen School of Advanced Studies and the Oklahoma Centennial High School teams.
But a recent article in The Oklahoman and other sources describe a much richer history:
- The stadium contains a quarter-mile dirt track that hosted demolition derbies and even NASCAR races starting in the 1950s.
- It hosted Bedlam games — Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State football — in 1943 and 1944.
- For years, it served as a neutral site for state-championship football games.
- It hosted a game in the final season of legendary Grambling State University coach Eddie Robinson’s career, when his Lions faced Langston.
- It hosted the Oklahoma City Plainsmen of the Continental Football League during the late 1960s.
- It hosts Oklahoma City Energy FC, a soccer team in a second-division professional league.
The stadium was renovated about 10 years ago, with its seating capacity chopped down from 18,000 to 7,500.
(Image of Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City via Living New Deal)