LEADERSHIP AND CONCEPTION OF BUILDING AND FINANCING
THE STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

September 15, 1919 Forrest C. Allen was elected Manager of Athlet-
ics at the University of Kansas with no coaching duties.

He had long had a desire to build a Tommy Johnson Memorial Stadium
in memory of Kansas' greatest athlete who died two years from the
date he was injured in a football game in Kansas City, Missouri
between the Missouri Tigers and the Kansas Jayhawkers at Old As-
sociation Park.

LaForce Bailey, a graduate of the University of Illinois, who

came to the University of Kansas in the Department of Architecture
and Design, greatly aided Allen in his work and enthusiasm of pro-
jecting a campaign to interest the citizens of the state in build-
ing a great Memorial Stadium.

Allen and Bailey raised $600.00 by public subscription to print a.
prospectus of the future stadium. Sketches and drawings together
with opinions of the prominent men of the state were printed and
distributed to enable the Jayhawker followers to envision the pos-
sibility of a great stadium on Mt. Oread.

The site of a new stadium on old McCook Field was frowned upon
severely by those in power at the university. As the formal en-
trance of the university was to be north of the Administration
Building the opponents of the stadium location, where it is now
located, were vigorous in their stand that the stadium be located
south of the hill where the students! intramural field is now lo-
cated. .

Borings were made and it was found that it would take 60,000 to
drain the hills adjacent to location properly sQ that a durable

stadium could be built there.

By working with the members of the Board of Administration, com-
posed at that time of Mr. Harve Penny of Lawrence, deceased, Mr.
Bert Berrier of Eureka and Mr. Wilbur N. Mason, Ex-president of
Baker University, Baldwin, Kansas, Director Allen obtained the
consent of these men to place the stadium at its present location.

Old McCook Field ran east and west and large willow trees obscured
the university from the spectators at McCook. An ugly, winding
Slough wended its way from Potter's Lake down past the old McCook
Field to Illinois Street. It was Allen's contention that a
beautiful horseshoe stadium nestling in the valley there with the
open end looking into nature's giant horseshoe to the south where
the university buildings are arranged in a concentric are would
hook up definitely the University of Kansas with her athletic
patrons.